Thoughtson a Kugel-Off

I love my mother’s noodle kugel--seasoned only with salt, pepper, eggs and a little oil on top to make it crunchy. But as I sampled the winning kugels Friday at Jewish Families of Camarillo Temple Ner Ami Kugel Cook-Off, I realized that mom’s kugel just wouldn’t have passed muster in this room of super kugels.

Pam Veselak, for instance, did more with a kugel than my mother ever considered. Hers, made from a friend’s recipe, had five eggs, sour cream, vanilla, cottage cheese and thin noodles, plus a sweet topping made of butter, cinnamon and crumbled cornflakes. It won first prize (a gift-wrapped spatula and a bag of “gourmet” pasta).

Jeff Allan took second place with a round kugel loaded with raisins, walnuts and cake crumbs. Allan admitted he improvised a little with the recipe, taken from a Jewish cookbook from the 1970s. While the directions called for noodles, Allan threw in multicolored Jewish star-shaped pasta. And though most kugel recipes call for whole eggs, Allan decided to cut down on calories and just use the whites.

It all got me to thinking: What is the essence of the kugel? Some might say it’s sour cream, some might say it’s eggs, but for most, it comes down to what your mother made.

“If you want it really good, saute it with onions, then just add thin noodles, eggs, salt and pepper,” said 83-year-old Becky Held, who has been making kugels the way mother taught her for five decades.

“It’s to die for.”

But Cindy Wolfsohn, who took second place in the cook-off last year, likes her kugels sweet. Instead of using a traditional rectangular mold, she uses a bundt pan. That way, the brown sugar gets all syrupy at the bottom, and when she turns the tin over, the caramelized concoction drizzles down and moistens the wide egg noodles mixing with the cream and eggs.

But Held piped up: “I’m not used to that kind of sweet kugel. My mother made the salty kind. That’s what she called the fleishig kugel [to go with meat dishes]. The other kind was milchig [for dairy meals].”

Apparently, it’s also the kind for winning kugel contests.