Käsespätzle Kugel

Dear World:
Here is the tastiest, umami-est, milk-coma-inducing-est piece of savory baking you will ever see. I present to you: Thanksgivukkah Recap, Part Two: the Käsespätzle Kugel.

Kugel's the German word for ball, but the Jewish food that shares its name doesn't look like a ball at all. Three German speakers I know fell into this false-friend trap as they hadn't seen the Jewish dish, often sub-dubbed a "noodle pudding." Typically kugels are made with wide egg noodles, and use cottage cheese and/or eggs to create a custard that binds the noodles. And most often they're sweet, studded with raisins and seasoned with sugar.

Käsespätzle, meanwhile, is a German noodle dish. But instead of binding the noodles with a custard, they just bake them with loads of cheese and caramelized onions, which ooze and drip from each forkful. Mine's a compromise which you can slice and serve, but which also gives you lovely, melty strings stretching from every bite.

I cobbled this one together from a whole bunch of recipes for cheesy kugels, quichey kugels, and classic kugels, plus the käsespätzle recipe from the Husband's go-to German cooking site. This combination's original enough that I'm taking full credit. Color me a proud kugeler.

It takes time to caramelize the onions but the deep, complex taste is so worth it. The dairy? It's always gonna be craaaazy but, yes, you can reduce or replace something. Greek yogurt instead of sour cream - why not? Reduce the sour cream or take out the cottage cheese - sure. I wanted to be super-sure it would stick together, so I used eggs and cottage cheese both. If you take out one of those two, let me know how it turns out.

Käsespätzle Kugel

serves 15

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 1 hour (to caramelize onions) + 40 minutes (to bake)

ingredients:

1 tbsp butter, plus more for greasing
4 medium or 3 large onions
1 kg spätzle noodles
500g (16oz) sour cream
450g grated Emmentaler cheese
2 eggs
200g (7oz) cottage cheese
1 tsp ground nutmeg
salt and pepper to taste

directions:

In a medium-sized skillet, melt the butter on low heat. Chop the onions into thin two-inch slices. Add the onions to the melted butter on the stove's lowest heat setting. (If they aren't changing color after10 minutes, increase the heat a little tiny bit.)

Cook the onions for a loooong time - 40 minutes to an hour - stirring occasionally, until they turn a rich brown and smell deeply delicious. You don't need to check them more than every 5 minutes. Remove from heat when they're brown enough or your patience runs out.

Not done yet.

Preheat the oven to 350F (175C). Grease a large casserole dish with butter (or other greasy stuff of your choice).

Put the spätzle noodles in a large bowl. Add the onions and stir well to make sure they're distributed evenly. Mix in the other ingredients one at a time, stirring carefully between each one. If you want, set aside 50g of the grated Emmentaler to sprinkle on top.

Pour into the greased casserole dish and smooth the top. Sprinkle with reserved Emmentaler, if that's your bag. (I didn't, just FYI.)

Bake for 40 minutes, or until the top's browned and the inside doesn't look too liquidy. If it's not browning, turn on the fan for the last 10 minutes or put it under the broiler briefly. Cut into teeny-tiny pieces and serve while piping hot.