Perfect Potato Kugel — Candidly Delicious | Family-tested Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Why is my potato kugel gummy? ›

So, if your potatoes are gummy, you have too much starch. You overworked your potatoes, mixing and mashing them too long and/or too hard (which is easy enough to do if you're using an electric mixer or similar abrasive tool).

Potato kugel can be prepared in advance. Once cooked and cooled, cover it with plastic wrap and store in the fridge for up to 4 days. Reheat in a 350°F oven until warmed through in the center and re-crisped. You can also freeze kugel.

Beat the eggs in a large bowl. Grate the potatoes into the eggs and stir to coat the potatoes with the egg to keep the potatoes from turning brown.

Potato kugel is a staple Shabbat and holiday dish in Eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jewish cooking. It's sometimes called potato pudding, as kugel is Yiddish for pudding.

As Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz once said, “Jews eat lots of lokshen on Shabbat because noodles are symbolic of the unity of the people of Israel: They are so tangled that they can never be separated.” Noodle kugel may not actually be eaten by all Jews, but it has clearly reached far beyond mere Ashkenazi cuisine.

Use a ricer.

The other key is to use the right tools, to avoid overworking the spuds. That's why it's worth putting aside the hand mixer or traditional potato masher and investing a few dollars in a potato ricer instead.

Potato kugel keeps well in the refrigerator for four to five days, as long as it's covered.

While kugel is best fresh from the oven, you can freeze it, wrapped well, then reheat ovenight.

After peeled or grated potatoes are exposed to air they will begin to turn gray or brown. This appearance can be off-putting, but the good news is that the quality of the potato isn't compromised. This is a harmless natural reaction and it is perfectly fine to cook and eat potatoes even if they have turned gray.

This process, which is called oxidation, happens because potatoes are a naturally starchy vegetable. And when exposed to oxygen, starches turn gray, brown, or even black. An oxidized potato is completely safe to eat. The process doesn't affect the flavor or texture of the vegetable.

Which blade for potato kugel? ›

You can use the Kugel blade for both, the onions and the potatoes, if you don't mind sneaky onion bits and you do mind washing dishes. And if you don't have the Kugel blade, you should get one. But in the meantime you can use a shredder blade. The texture will be different but your kugel will still be delicious.

And then I read in The Jewish Kitchen: Recipes and Stories from Around the World of a Hasidic rabbi, Pinchas of Koretz (in Galicia), who claimed that lokshen kugel itself symbolizes Jewish unity, since the noodles are all tangled together and are really inseparable, just like the unified Jewish people.

German and Jewish (Ashkenazic): nickname for a rotund person, from Middle High German kugel(e), German Kugel 'ball, orb'. The term also denoted a hooded cloak or round-topped mountain, and in some cases the surname may have arisen from either of these senses.

Here's how this sticky state of affairs happens: Cooking causes the starch granules within the potato cells to absorb water and swell. Some cells will inevitably burst, releasing tacky gel that helps give mashed potatoes their cohesiveness.

Using Foil -

Foil traps the moisture in the potato causing the skin to be wet and the inside flavorless or gummy. Potatoes are made up of about 80% water, so sealing it up in foil does not allow enough water to escape, making it soggy.

While rubbery rot may be new to the North American potato industry, the pathogen that causes it isn't new to the continent. The Geotrichum candidum pathogen is a mold that is yeast like. It behaves as yeast and is used in food processing with some strains of it used as a rind on cheese.