Noodle Kugel Recipe
By Cassandra Clifford
For those who don’t know, Yom Kippur is probably the most important Jewish festival. It’s the day on which we atone for our sins from the previous year. A major component of Yom Kippur, besides wearing white to the synagogue and hearing the shofar, is fasting. Although I often did not (successfully) fast on Yom Kippur growing up, I loved the meal we would have for breaking the fast--all the things you might think of when you think of Ashkenazi Jewish food, like bagels and lox, blintzes, and noodle kugel.
The kugel, in particular, holds a special family significance. My grandmother has an old cookbook, The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook, which is basically like her encyclopedia. Even though I’m pretty sure she hardly ever makes reference to it, she does cite two noodle casserole recipes as inspiring her noodle kugel recipe, though my aunt and I have decided she came up with this recipe pretty much on her own. For one thing, my dad hated raisins as a child, so while most noodle kugel recipes include raisins, this one does not.
I’ve asked my grandmother, who has made this dish for as long as she can remember, and my father, who grew up eating this dish and still loves it, and neither is quite sure what meal noodle kugel is--a side dish for dinner? Breakfast? Dessert? You can make some and decide for yourself.
Ingredients
1 ½ cups cottage cheese
1 cup sour cream
1 16-oz. bag of egg noodles (like Manischewitz noodles)
1 egg
½ cup butter (1 stick)
1 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp white pepper (or to taste)
1 tbsp cinnamon (or to taste)
Salt to taste
Cinnamon sugar (for sprinkling)
Directions
Grease a 9x13 pan or glass baking dish. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Mix cottage cheese, sour cream, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, and salt together until combined. You can use a hand mixer if you’d like or you can beat by hand. Taste to make sure the flavors are to your liking.
Beat the egg into the cottage cheese and sour cream mixture. Set aside.
Bring a pot of water to a boil. Cook the egg noodles for about seven minutes (or however long is indicated on the package). It’s important that you don’t overcook them!
After draining the noodles and while they are still hot, mix them with the butter. Stir the noodles until the butter is evenly distributed.
Add the noodles to the cottage cheese and sour cream mixture and stir until combined.
Put the noodles in the pan and spread them out evenly.
Sprinkle the noodles with cinnamon sugar (you can also use a combination of cinnamon and sugar if you don’t have a jar of cinnamon sugar).
Cover the pan with tin foil and place in the oven for 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, remove the tin foil and leave in for another fifteen minutes.
Remove the noodle pudding from the oven when the top is golden brown. Enjoy!
