Kugel, a staple at Jewish holidays, is the heart and soul of comfort

Confession: I have never had a tuna-noodle casserole. I don't know what that is, exactly, and don't harbor much curiosity. It just doesn't sound that appealing to me.

You, on the other hand, may have grown up eating some variation of this unfussy, belly-filling comfort food that laughs in the face of low-carb diet fads.

For me, that comfort food is kugel.

This catchall genre of starchy, egg-bound casserole shows up at almost every Jewish holiday table in one form or another. It's Ashkenazic - Eastern European - in origin, but there are also distinctly Israeli iterations as well as blatantly American ones. It can be spicy or savory, but often it's sweet to a degree that surprises (and, perhaps, offends) the uninitiated.

Mitch Prensky, chef/owner at the South Street restaurant Supper, puts kugel up there with brisket as one of those iconic staples of Jewish home cooking.

But it can take some explaining.

"A lot of guys that cook in my kitchen, they come to appreciate it in a very clinical fashion. But they don't really get it," he said. "They don't have any heart and soul behind it."

For Ashkenazi Jews, though, it's a food tradition with deep roots.

It began centuries ago as a bready dumpling cooked overnight in the Sabbath stew by German Jews, according to the late food historian Gil Marks, and it evolved into a baked pudding unto itself.

"If you get a group of Jewish women together, each will tell you they have the best recipe for kugel: It's the only good one," my mother told me recently.

She likes her own version best, of course, though it might scandalize purists given that it contains both raisins and lots of caramelized onion.

Marks, in writing the history of kugel, defined it as any such casserole containing a starch base, eggs, and fat, but without any added water or other liquids. If it violates those rules, he wrote, it's a cake.

That leaves plenty of room for tinkering with the tradition, typically served as a side dish at Rosh Hashanah meals or as an easy-on-the-stomach break-the-fast dish for Yom Kippur.

Carol Ungar's new book, Jewish Soul Food: Traditional Fare and What It Means, includes a recipe for challah kugel, essentially bread pudding, and Paula Shoyer's The New Passover Menu offers a version made from asparagus, zucchini, and leeks. There are also variations made with crumbled matzo and rice.

As good as my mother's recipe is, I've found there are, actually, other good ones out there.

As Rosh Hashanah is usually celebrated with apples and honey, I've been tinkering with an apple-honey kugel, with ricotta and sour cream for extra creaminess. I also tried potato-shallot-thyme kugel, cooked in an oven-safe skillet like one large hash-brown.

My new favorite, though, is from Janna Gur's 2014 book, Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh.

It's a Jerusalem-style variation, made with lots of fresh-ground black pepper and caramelized sugar and baked in a tall pot for an impressive presentation.

Kugel was a jumping-off point for Yehuda Sichel, chef at Abe Fisher, the restaurant "inspired by the cuisine of the Jewish diaspora."

The dish was a holiday tradition for him growing up as an Orthodox Jew in Baltimore.

"On Friday afternoons, we used to have kugel hour," he said. "If you got showered and were ready in time, my mom would give us kugel."

It was a snack to tide them over through Friday-evening services until the late Sabbath meal.

His mother served potato or broccoli kugel (purchased, not homemade). It was the inspiration for the kugel Sichel makes at Abe Fisher - a broccoli-and-cheddar variation with lots of eggs and a pie crust on top.

"It's kind of a cross between a quiche and a kugel," he said. "It's a little more deconstructed.

Among the chefs he works with, Michael Solomonov and Steve Cook, there are different kugel traditions.

The new Zahav cookbook, out next month, has a noodle kugel recipe studded with pieces of brisket, a meal unto itself.

Prensky goes in the opposite direction.

His favorite kugel is sweet, with Honeycrisp apples, cinnamon and sugar, and a superrich custard dosed with cream cheese.

"That amps up that richness in the custard itself so when you fold in your noodles and you bake it off at the end, it's not going to tighten up into this bouncy rubbery thing that everyone's experienced, that you could actually use as soles for sneakers."

He said he'll be doing a soufflé-like spinach-and-goat cheese kugel or the sweet apple version, or both, at his Rosh Hashanah dinner, a prix fixe menu available Sept. 13 and 14.

He said he'd omit raisins, though, as a matter of diplomacy.

"The raisin situation! I know so many people who are so violently opposed to raisins," he said.

But, he added, "I've done apples, cranberry, pears, a pumpkin kugel. Mushroom kugel. There are so many different things you can do with it."

Makes 4-6 servings

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2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for the skillet

11/2 cup fideos (fine egg noodles)

2 cups chicken stock

1 small yellow onion, halved and sliced

2 cups chopped cooked meat, such as brisket

1/2 cup dried sour cherries

1 pinch Urfa peppers (or dried anchos)

2 eggs, beaten

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1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Brush a small oven-safe skillet or baking dish with olive oil and set aside. Meanwhile, heat a small amount of olive oil in a skillet over low heat, add onion, and cook slowly, stirring periodically, until the onion is completely brown and almost spreadably soft.

2. Toss the fideos with 1 tablespoon of the olive oil and scatter on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until the fideos turn brown and smell toasted, about 2 to 3 minutes.

3. Put the chicken stock in a pot over high heat and bring to a simmer. Lower heat enough to just maintain a bare simmer. Warm 1 tablespoon of caramelized onions and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the toasted fideos and stir to coat. Add the chicken stock, about ½ cup at a time, cooking until the chicken stock is absorbed between each addition, until the fideos are tender, about 12 minutes.

4. Turn off the heat, add the cooked meat, sour cherries, and Urfa peppers. Stir and let cool. Stir in the beaten eggs. Pour the mixture into the prepared skillet or baking pan and bake until brown and crisp on the top, about 20 to 30 minutes.

Per serving (based on 6):

272 calories; 15 grams protein; 16 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram sugar; 17 grams fat; 110 milligrams cholesterol; 339 milligrams sodium; trace dietary fiber.

Make 10 servings

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14 ounces wide egg noodles

3 tart apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 cup ricotta

1 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon nutmeg

6 eggs

1/2 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 cup half-and-half

1/2 cup honey

1 tablespoon butter

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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Boil noodles in a large pot according to package instructions, taking care not to overcook. Rinse and drain.

2. In a large bowl, beat eggs, then mix in ricotta, sour cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, cream and honey. Stir well. Add apples and noodles.

3. Grease an 8-by-12-inch baking pan with butter, coating bottom and sides. Add mix and bake about 40 minutes, until kugel is set and top is golden.

Per serving: 383 calories; 13 grams protein; 53 grams carbohydrates; 21 grams sugar; 14 grams fat; 159 milligrams cholesterol; 100 milligrams sodium; 3 grams dietary fiber.EndText

Serves 8.

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14 ounces egg noodles

1/3 cup vegetable oil

11/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)

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1. Cook noodles in a large pot filled with salted boiling water according to package instructions, taking care not to overcook.

2. In a tall, nonstick, medium ovenproof pot, heat vegetable oil. Add 1 cup of the sugar and melt until caramelized and golden brown (5 minutes over medium heat should do it). Add the noodles and stir to coat. Remove from heat, transfer to a bowl, and let cool.

3. In a separate bowl, beat eggs with 1/2 cup sugar, salt, pepper, and cinnamon and pour over the noodles. Mix well.

4. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.

5. Return the mixture to the pot. Without stirring, cook over low heat until the edges begin to brown, 15 minutes.

6. Transfer the pot to the oven and bake 2 to 3 hours (or overnight at 215 degrees).

7. Cool slightly and flip onto a serving platter. Slice as you would a cake and serve warm or at room temperature.

- From Janna Gur's Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh (Schocken Books, 2014)

Per serving: 324 calories; 5 grams protein; 51 grams carbohydrates; 38 grams sugar; 12 grams fat; 96 milligrams cholesterol; 906 milligrams sodium; 1 gram dietary fiber.EndText

Makes 8 servings

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6 eggs

1/2 cup shallots, peeled and diced fine

1 tablespoon flour

31/2 cups russet potatoes, peeled and grated

1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves

Salt and pepper to taste

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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2. Drain potatoes in a colander for 10 minutes, pressing out any liquid.

3. Beat eggs in a large bowl, then add shallots, potato, thyme, salt and pepper.

4. Coat an oven-safe skillet lightly with olive oil, including the sides. Pour in batter. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. Brush the top lightly with olive oil if desired, and bake 15 to 30 minutes more until golden on top. Serve warm.

Per serving: 118 calories; 6 grams protein; 13 grams carbohydrates; 1 gram sugar; 5 grams fat; 123 milligrams cholesterol; 51 milligrams sodium; 2 grams dietary fiber.EndText