Brand A

For Hanukkah a few years ago, my father bought me a book. “Low Fat Jewish Cooking.” I’m still pretty certain that this came from the Barnes and Noble humor section, which is where he has selected every Hanukkah. I’ve never felt a need to refer to it, as my primary Jewish cooking duties come once a year for a tradition my friends estabished when we all moved out to Astoria a few years ago: The Annual Feast of Fried Foods (FoFF).

Last year I made some wicked gingered apple sauce. This year, I was requested of to make kugel. I didn’t want to make the typical cheesecake-with-noodles version, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to slice 4 lbs of potatoes, even if my Cuisinart is my third-best friend (after my girlfriend and the Kitchenaid Artisan she gave me). I did some searching around Epicurious and came upon Browned Onion Kugels.

Noodly!

1. Double the recipe. Kugel is not supposed to be made in small amounts. You will always want more, and you can eat it for breakfast by itself for a week.

2. Substitute the onions with 4 large leeks, sliced thinly. I had 2-3 tbs of garlic butter in the fridge, which I used to sautee the leeks at very low heat for about 40 minutes until very translucent and about to caramelize. If you don’t have garlic butter, use about 3 tbs of oil and 3 cloves of diced garlic, and sautee that gently for about 5 minutes before adding the leeks. Season along the way with salt and pepper.

3. I traded out the cottage cheese for part-skim ricotta. Cuz I’m watching the calories. (Psht.)

4. I took the muffin pan option, and divided this up easily into 18 individual servings and a 1 quart Pyrex dish for my personal breakfasting.

Recommendations on what I’d do differently next time:

1. Up the volume of noodles by a few handfuls and cut back on the dairy by about 3/4 of a cup on the sour cream and ricotta. These came out eggy and fluffy, but might’ve been just a little better if they’d had more texture.

2. Don’t overfill, which is what I did. If you have another muffin pan, or if you want to bake in batches, do it.

3. Lube the top of your pan and put something in your oven to catch the drips. These guys will almost definitely overflow a little, leaving you with some unattractive burnt edges and a loud smoke detector.