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Five amazing recipes of this iconic Jewish dish.

“I had Shabbos dinner with Cohn. He served kugel…” So related the famous German poet Heinrich Heine in a letter dated December 19, 1825, to his friend Moses Moser. Moser had established a lofty journal for the study of Jewish culture, but Heine had a simpler take on what it meant to be Jewish: “I ate this holy national dish, which has done more to preserve Judaism than” all the journal issues Moser ever published, he asserted.

Kugel, one of the most iconic Jewish dishes, has the power to transport us back to memories of Shabbat and holiday tables. Over the past thousand years, it has spread to virtually every corner of the Jewish culinary world, but kugel’s origins are in Germany and – surprisingly – in China.

In the Middle Ages, the practice of cooking noodles or dumplings – dough boiled in a liquid – spread from China to Italy, as merchants traded spices and other goods along the Silk Road. From Italy, Jewish traders brought the practice of making dumplings to Germany, and soon it became popular as a Shabbat dish. Jewish housewives started dropping balls of batter into their weekly Shabbat stew, to be prepared on Friday afternoon and simmered overnight. The resulting dumpling was a delicious treat, served alongside the stew after synagogue on Saturday morning. In fact, “kugel” means ball in German, reflecting its dumpling origins.

Soon, however, Jewish women experimented with cooking kugels by themselves, varying the ingredients. In eastern Jewish communities, Jewish women incorporated local ingredients like rice, spices, and dried fruits into their kugels. In Europe, noodle kugels soon became popular. After the introduction of the potato to European soil, Jewish cooks in Eastern Europe began making kugels with the new vegetable. A popular Yiddish song captures both the limited diet of impoverished Jewish communities – and the special place that kugel held as a special Shabbat dish:

Sunday potatoes, Monday potatoes, Tuesday and Wednesday potatoes, Thursday and Friday potatoes, but Shabbos, for a change, a potato kugel.

The first published recipe for kugel in the United States seems to hail from Western Europe: a sweet noodle version, the recipe given in Esther Levy’s groundbreaking 1871 American Jewish cookbook called for homemade noodles, raisins, eggs and sugar.

Since then, kugel has undergone a transformation: pineapple, cranberries, cream cheese all feature in modern kugel recipes. Yet the classics remain ever popular and kugel is even becoming trendy. In 2015, Bon Appetit magazine even hosted a noodle kugel cook-off, reflecting a new popularity of this traditional dish.

Five Amazing Recipes

Here are five amazing kugel recipes to enjoy; please feel free to supply your own favorite kugel ideas in the comments section below!

Jerusalem Kugel

This sweet and spicy Israeli kugel is said to have arrived in Israel’s capital in the 1700s with the followers of the Jewish sage the Vilna Gaon, who encouraged Jews to resettle in Israel. (Thanks to the Vilna Gaon’s influence, Jerusalem soon became a majority-Jewish city again, for the first time since the Roman destruction.) Traditional versions call for Jerusalem Kugel to be cooked overnight, along with the Shabbat stew; this wonderful recipe gives you the option of baking it for only hour only, if you prefer, instead.

Skillet Potato Kugel

This is the perfect potato kugel: crispy brown on the outside and rich and creamy inside.

Broccoli Kugel

This easy, delicious kugel becomes an instant favorite of everyone who tastes it.

Lokshen Noodle Kugel

This amazing Noodle Kugel was shared with us as a special nostalgic dish from Nonna Betty. We keep her memory alive by cooking this kugel.

3 Layered Vegetable Kugel

One kugel that combines 3 vegetables to satisfy everyone's taste.

 

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