i really like kugel, but i haven't made any in ages. i used to make the sweet kind, with sour cream. want to share a couple of recipes with me? the broccolli one sounds interesting!

Sweet dairy kugels. I haven't had one of those in decades.

Also, to be honest, my recipe for kugels tends to be "Go to store. Buy."

When I do make kugels, I make them entirely by feel. You know. Grate up something (or cook a bunch of noodles.) Mix with several eggs, a handful or two of matzo meal, some grated or cooked onion, some oil and lots of salt and pepper. Pour into pan and bake until done. What temperature? What temperature are you using for the rest of your meal?

Mostly, though, I buy them.

not something i've found at a store here. not a large jewish population. though we do have a surprisingly large vietnamese population for a city our size, mostly, i think, because of the supersized military base. soldiers marry someone, then bring their whole family over.

i do like to experiment with food, but i usually start with a recipe. and i like the temperature thing - that's exactly what i do! start with the one item that has to have a certain temperature and let the rest cook along with it. tonight i had a meatloaf, a chicken spaghetti casserole, cornish pasties and a pineapple upsidedown cake all cooking together over a two-hour period. oven temp? set for the cake :)

btw, is there something weird about liking sweet dairy kugels?

Not at all. Sweet kugels are very popular, whether it's the standard noodle one with raisins or my personal favorite, Yerushalmi kugels.. (Yershalmi kugels are made with thin noodle, lots of pepper and caramelized sugar. They're sweet, spicy and salty, and therefore incredibly delicious. I haven't had one in years.)

Note that these are all *side dishes*.

Kugels pretty much evolved as a Shabbos dish because they can be kept warm overnight or, being dry, can be reheated on a suitable surface. Shabbat meals tend to the meat, of course, so the kugels had to be non-dairy. Also, fat is an integral part of pretty much every kugel recipe, and the cheapest/most available fat in Eastern Europe, where kugels developed, was chicken fat. Also precludes dairy, you see. Finally, they began as puddings cooked in little pots or bags right in the cholent (overnight stew) pots, and as cholents tend to be meat...well.

Dairy kugels tend to be weekday meals (in which case, they'd be savory, not sweet). About the only time you'd have sweet dairy kugels would be for Shavuot, because it's traditional to eat dairy for Shavuot. Again, it would more likely be a side-dish than a dessert.

I'm avoiding sweet lately and I'm not fond of sweet sides anyway, so I'm mostly buying (and occasionally making) savory kugels.

I miss Yerushalmi ones, though.