It’s not everyday you make a kugel with scratch made pasta and home made ricotta…and liquor soaked cranberries… but when it is that day…. when it’s warranted and you want to go through a multi-level effort… the results are amazing. I like kugel normally but I absolutely LOVE it when it’s made this way. I love the bite of chewy thicker noodles and the creaminess of home made ricotta. Put it all together and it’s a winner!
It’s not a dish I make regularly, it’s not generally in my wheelhouse and not something I grew up with, sometimes I will make it when my husband’s side of the family comes over for Yom Kippur or Chanukah and this Yom Kippur I hosted and my centrepiece was going to be the Kugel. This however, comes with a warning, be careful to not shatter pyrex dishes.
It was a clumsy mistake, I can’t believe I didn’t notice the one burner was on super low… goes to show how low it can actually go. It took some time before I realized it was the corner of that resting, cooling dish on the stove that was burning and not something else in the oven. Quickly I turned it off, and it may have been okay had I not wanted to get it off the hot element and pushed it off to the cooler back part of the stove…. that’s when it happened… it shattered to pieces.
The bottom still held together, it was still piping hot and far from manageable. All I could do was send my husband a picture of it and tell him I just wanted to cry. His response was, “Can’t you save it”? And I have to admit that I was thinking the same thing. Once things cooled down enough that I could touch them I pulled out another, smaller container and tried to scoop up as much of the kugel that I thought was clear of any glass. I know… some of you are shuttering right now…. and trust me I was doing the same thing. Vacillating between desperately wanting to save the kugel and being scared that there might be some shard of glass hiding in the mess, I grappled with these thoughts as I cleaned up the rest of the disaster from the stove.
I thought the dish had only shattered into chunks the same way a car window is meant to, but as I was cleaning up the pieces I could see that there were numerous slivers strewn about the stove that were barely perceptible and those were my nemesis. In the end, I put my glasses on and looked super close and could see that there was at least one on the top of the kugel. That was it. Off to the garbage it went.
Of course now that was what I was craving more than anything else. I could care less about any of the other dishes we were having for dinner. All I wanted was the kugel.
So here we are, I was making this dish again and decided to memorialize it in a post…. it is deliciously good…. even if you’re not the biggest kugel fan, it’s creamy and just a little sweet and crispy on the outside… it is just a winner. Thanks to Smittenkitchen for the homemade ricotta recipe that I’ll reprint here. And to This Old Gal’s inspiration which was the basis of kugel — though it was altered some. Years ago I found a blog that had a kugel with booze soaked raisins but the link I had doesn’t work anymore and I can’t seem to find it. Suffice it to say, I’m a true believer that all ideas stem from others and please don’t think any of this is my original idea or something no one else ever thought of…
Here goes….
Scratch Ricotta
The day before, or at least several hours before make the ricotta
- 3 cups of whole homogenized milk
- Juice of one lemon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Mix the milk and salt in a sauce pan. Heat to 190 °F while stirring pretty regularly so that it doesn’t burn at the bottom. Once you reach 190° take the pot off the stove, stir in the lemon juice and let sit for about 10 minutes. In that time get a sieve lined with cheese cloth ready. Once the 10 minutes are up then pour into the sieve and let it sit for a couple of hours. the longer you leave it the drier the cheese is so you can test it every so often so see how you like it. I generally do this the day before and let it sit for several hours. Take out of the cheesecloth and set aside in the refrigerator until you’re ready to use it.
Booze soaked cranberries
Soak 1/2 cup dried cranberries in tequila or gin…. I had some really nice pink gin that I soaked them in the day before, when I made the ricotta. Set those aside until you’re ready to assemble the kugel.
Noodles
- 6 large eggs
- 2 cups flour
- pinch of salt
- splash of water (1-2 tablespoons)
Mix all the ingredients together on a floured counter to make a nice dough. Knead into a nice ball and let it rest for a bit. It will be stiff and a bit of work to roll out, let it rest intermittently and keep at it… it will be worth it. Roll out the dough about 1/8 of an inch thick…. I generally don’t worry about measuring… it will puff up when you boil it and I quite love it a little thicker and chewier. There are probably a million recipes and instructions out there in the Internet… this one is just here to serve as my own recipe and reminder. Any recipe is fine.
For the kugel, when I boil the pasta I only boil it for about a minute. I’ve boiled it longer but when I’ve done it that way there isn’t much bite left to the noodles after they’ve been baked. When made for this I literally drop the pasta into boiling water and then take it out AS SOON as it starts to float.
Rinse with cold water then set aside.
Kugel Filling
- 8 large eggs
- 1 Cup full fat sour cream
- 3/4 Cup sugar
- juice of 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Ricotta (what you’ve made from the recipe above)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Place all the ingredients together in a bowl and mix with a whisk. It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth and I actually like it with a few small chunks of the cheese.
Kugel Assembly
Preheat oven to 350° F.
- 1 large apple – sliced thin using a mandolin
- 1 batch of ricotta (as above)
- 1 batch of noodles (as above)
- 1 batch of booze soaked cranberries (as above)
- Kugel filling
Place the noodles in a greased 9 x 13 dish, mix in the sliced apple and the cranberries then pour the filling over the entire dish. It might be a little thick so I generally move the noodles around a bit to ensure the filling gets into every corner. Place the kugel into the oven and bake for about 50 minutes or until golden brown on the top.
Let it cool for a bit…. DO NOT place on cold surface 🙂 and serve either warm or at room temperature. I eat mine on its own but people will often have it with a scoop of sour cream… whatever your pleasure….
Bon Appétit!