Thursday, October 20, 2011

Accidental Crispy Kugel

Recipe ShedI wanted to link up to Recipeshed at Reluctant Housedad this week as the prompt is rice, pulses and pasta. Perfect for my vegetarian kitchen and I have wanted to experiment with Majadra (rice, lentils and fried onions) or maybe a veggie Kedgeree. However, what with the bad back and all, I never got round to it. I'm up to writing but can't get my head round the cooking and taking the photo. Then I suddenly remembered that I have a pasta dish in the oven. It's a total accident on all fronts - serendipity if you like.

Yesterday I made my usual pasta with frozen green beans thrown in to the water for a little healthy extra at no extra effort. But I was lazy and instead of cooking the pasta al dente and then adding a sauce, I threw in some sauce ingredients with the cooking pasta and let it absorb. Nice idea but you can't make a rissotto effect out of pasta and I ended up with mushy pasta which neither of us were thrilled about. Lots of it.

A word about Kugel. It's Yiddish for cake or bake. We use it to mean any base ingredients (noodles, potatoes, vegetables) seasoned, mixed with eggs and flour and baked in the oven. So I took my mushy pasta with beans, spiced it up with salt and plenty of pepper, mixed in three eggs and a couple of spoonfuls of flour, and put it in a hot oven for about an hour. when the top was all dark and crispy, I turned it over in the dish and chopped it up a bit. It was then returned to the oven for more crisping. Finally I sprinkled it with grated cheese and popped it back in the oven just to make sure it was absolutely dead.

I took the picture and voila - we have been picking at it all afternoon. Not what you'd put in your recipe book but just as good as nachos and cheese. And far better than wasting a whole pot of pasta.

8 comments:

  1. As I was reading this I thought 'Nachos and cheese' and voila, there it was at the end of the post. Good wholesome picking food. Thanks for linking. Next week the Shed is being hosted by TheBOyandMe, whose theme will be PRESERVES AND CHUTNEYS

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  2. Thank you, I'm definitley going to link my pickled cucumbers.

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  3. I am vegetarian too and hate wasting food. Your idea was genius and looks great x
    Visiting from BYOBH

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  4. Thank you QWERTY Mum. It's always a dilemma whether to add good food to disaster food to try to make something OK out of it, or to just cut your losses and toss. I was lucky this time :)

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  5. This sounds yummy! Perfect for a night in, will give it a try!
    XxX

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  6. Thanks Ghostwriter - you may even find that you don;t have to ruin the pasta first :)

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  7. Oh heck, that sounds GORGEOUS! And it made me laugh too - the absolutely dead bit. :)

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  8. Jane - Well us vegetarians must be careful not to eat anything alive! :)

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