Anybody making a dairy meal this Shabbos? Come on, you know you’re getting tired of all that chicken.
Right? You’ve had enough chicken?
Wait. Why did this room suddenly empty out?
I may not be able to get you to back away from the fleishigs, but I can sing the praises of this dairy noodle kugel. Seriously, there’s a lot to praise.
Let’s start with the roasted garlic. Everything about roasted garlic is awesome.
Now pulverize the roasted garlic. Your kids will think that’s pretty awesome, too.
Your next victims are garlic & dill cream cheese (so much more personality than the unflavored stuff), sour cream, and milk.
Do you see where I’m going with this? Creamy dairy deliciousness in a noodle kugel. Are you sold yet?
I know it sounds a bit intense, but the result is actually light enough for a summer meal. Which means that even if you can’t convince your family to go dairy for the main Shabbos meals, you could totally serve this up at seudat shlishit.
And if not? I hear it tastes pretty great in the succah, too.
Dairy noodle kugel with mushrooms and roasted garlic
Yield: 8-10 servings
Ingredients
- 10 oz (300 g) medium egg noodles
- 1 head garlic
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 8 oz (225 g) garlic and dill cream cheese (or flavor of your choice)
- 12 oz (340 g) sour cream
- 1 1/3 cups milk
- 4 eggs
- ½ tsp salt
- freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 (4 oz) can mushrooms
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 400 F/200 C. Grease a 9″ x 13″ baking dish and set aside.
2. Slice off the top of the garlic head and discard. Brush exposed garlic tops with oil, wrap in aluminum foil, and roast for about 45 minutes. (I prefer to peel each clove to ensure that it’s both fresh and bug-free, then brush all the cloves lightly with oil and wrap in foil.) Remove from oven and set aside. Reduce oven temperature to 375 F/190 C.
3. In a pot of boiling water, cook noodles for 6 minutes.
4. While the noodles are cooking, squeeze roasted garlic cloves into a large bowl. Mash with a potato masher, then beat in cream cheese, sour cream, milk, eggs, salt, and pepper (I use 10 turns of the pepper grinder). Stir in mushrooms to evenly distribute.
5. Add drained noodles and toss to coat with the dairy mixture, then pour everything into the prepared dish and bake for 45 minutes. Let kugel settle 20 minutes before serving. Reheats well.
