Schmaltzy Noodle Kugel Recipe

Sweet kugels are traditionally served with Jewish holiday meals, but savory kugels — made with egg noodles, onions and eggs — make a great side dish any night of the week. Skye Estroff learned to add Vidalia onions to her kugel from her grandma, Anita Estroff, known in the family as Nini. If you search online, you can find a video of Nini beating Bobby Flay in a sweet potato casserole cook-off. She was also a proud winner of the local Vidalia Onion Cook-Off. We are happy to borrow Nini’s wisdom by adding Vidalia onions to our kugel.

We caramelize the onions in rendered chicken fat (schmaltz) to build a savory base and then add parsley, salt, pepper and eggs. We toss the egg mixture with still-warm noodles to thicken the eggs slightly so they cling to the noodles rather than sink to the bottom of the casserole. To achieve the characteristic crunchy top, we give the baked casserole a quick pass under the broiler. Look for rendered chicken fat in the frozen food section of larger supermarkets; if you can’t find it you can swap in extra-virgin olive oil (the resulting casserole will not be as savory). Use a broiler-safe baking dish for this recipe.

Notes:

• To make ahead, kugel can be fully assembled, covered and refrigerated up to 24 hours in advance. Increase baking time to 25 minutes.
• Caramelized onions can be made ahead, and refrigerated for up to three days.

Recipe courtesy of America’s Test Kitchen. All rights reserved.

Skye’s Story

The Southern community is one in which everyone seems to know everyone. When you’re Southern and Jewish, everyone actually knows everyone by family name, line of work, and if there’s a good cook in the family. It’s a tight-knit subculture that is particularly personal to me. My great-great-grandparents fled the pogroms of Russia and came directly to rural Georgia and South Carolina. I know from their stories that assimilating in small towns where they were the only Jewish people was a challenge, but it was one they overcame. They found food to be the universal connector in this unfamiliar culture. Don’t get me wrong, there are other Jewish people in the South, but it is much more uncommon to find the families of Jewish people who immigrated here and have not left in the generations since.

Fast-forward to my experience growing up in suburban Atlanta, and it was still a rarity to come from this background. My bat mitzvah served as a crash course in Jewish tradition to my public-school peers. When I was involved in international Jewish youth groups, they were intrigued by my Southern drawl. Let’s just say, no one was accustomed to my family’s familiar phrasings like “L’Chaim and Go Dawgs!”

My coexistence would mystify people. It was my party trick. I found acceptance by sharing this new archetype of person with others. By way of language but also with food.

I grew up accustomed to an amalgamation of these two cuisines. There was squash casserole at every Shabbat dinner with matzah meal baked in to substitute for bread crumbs. Vidalia onions were braised with every brisket.

My college roommates would snack on my Grammy’s homemade mandel bread; my friends would post up at my grandparents’ football tailgates at UGA with a generous spread of deviled eggs, cheese straws, pimento cheese, and bagels, too. Interpretations of Jewish food in the restaurant space have generally shared the deli-side of our cuisine, but there is a subcategory that has not yet been expressed to the masses. This mash-up of Jewish and Southern cultures is my family’s comfort food. When you’re fortunate enough to have the two worlds collide, your whole community becomes mishpucha (Yiddish for “family”).

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