Best Ever Potato Kugel
The long standing debate about potato kugel. I prefer a shredded potato kugel because I feel that you get a bit more crispier bites. Not everyone agrees with me.
Also- are you nervous about making potato kugel? I did not grow up in a house where my mother made potato kugel every week so I kind of felt indifferent about my potato kugel making abilities. I don’t think I ever even ventured to make it for the first few years of my marriage.
When I started using Instagram for my business (about 5 years ago), I started watching people cook. I love watching people cook and I think I learned how to actually cook from the show Chopped- which I think I watched every single episode.
The difference was, that watching it on Instagram, I got to watch orthodox women cook Jewish food. No pork or lobster ever!
I watched people make potato kugel but it did not look doable. It kind of reminds me of making challah. You can’t teach yourself how to make challah. You need someone to show you a few times until you got it. Ever potato kugel recipe I looked at was much more of a technique than a recipe.
Then, everything changed this last Pesach. We got invited(or I invited myself), to my old landlords who are chassidish. They are much stricter about what they can and can’t have on Pesach. I took one bite of the potato kugel and I was hooked. But I didn’t even fathom I could make it. I told them how intimidates I was about potato kugel and they calmly reassured me that I could do it.
I got the recipe after yuntif and I never looked back. I made 2 huge pans of kugel for my family during the ends days of Pesach and they were each licked clean.
This recipe is very doable and it also combines the mushy and shredded texture.
Best Ever Potato Kugel Ingredients:
6 eggs
1 cup of hot water or seltzer
1 cup of oil
1 tablespoon and a half of salt
Dash of pepper
9 potato’s -shredded (I prefer Yukon gold but you can use any potato’s)
1 onion
- Mix it all up
- Cook on 350 or 400 for 3 hours
- If you’d like overnight kugel: cook on 215 overnight (about 8 hours)
Here is the technique part:
Use the “s” blade of your food process to make watery onions (that what I call them). Add 6 eggs to the food processor with the onions and blend them (just for about 20 seconds).
Take the onion/egg mixture out and add it to your pan.
Switch the food processor bland to the shredding blade and then shred the 9 potato’s – add those to the pan as well (Work quickly so your potato’s don’t brown)
add either 1 cup of hot water or seltzer (This is a really fun aspect of this kugel- I like alternating and seeing if my family notices a difference. Do you know when you eat amazing potato kugel at a kiddush and it’s a bit eggy at the bottom, I believe that is because of the hot water that you add that slightly cooks the eggs).
1 cup of oil – I use olive oil in just about anything but canola is good too.
add 1 tablespoon and a half of salt
add Dash of pepper (I like it peppery so I would add a half of a teaspoon)
Here is some advice.
If you like that really nice crunch on the outside- cook it in 375 or 400 for 3 hours. However, if you do that, and then you cook it overnight, you might end up with a very dry kugel. So if you are going to cook it overnight, I would cook the kugel on 350. Another great thing to do it to make the kugel on Friday and keep it in the oven on Friday at 200 until the Friday night meal, that is insanely good.
Enjoy!
