When I Made an Alsatian Pear-Prune Kugel

I wrote this post almost two years ago. I had wondered why I made things I wouldn't really eat when all I liked about them was the thought of 'achieving' them. I have to say this kugel fell into the same category. It's midnight as I write this and I'm not taxing my brain to check if I have made any such conquests since then and now but I sallied forth and made it anyway - a few midnights ago. Well, I would have waited for morning but my pears - purchased for a fortune less than two days earlier - had started rotting and I did not want to lose more of my money overnight.

I saw this recipe on a newspaper's Facebook page and it seemed so easy - bread is the main ingredient and there's no messing around with whisking and mixing and folding. The thought of a fruit cake/pastry made with little effort save some peeling and dicing was alluring. To add to that, there was the exotica of adding onion to the mix and still have the whole thing coming out sweet.

What was I thinking? That it would taste like the nice sweet noodle kugel I had in a Wegman's in New Jersey last year when I visited? That I would be sinking my teeth into a fruity, warm, East European dessert with so much fruit in it it would actually count for some nutrition? That I would amaze my colleagues in the Refuge of Failed Experiments with a Success? (The RFE is my workplace - most anything gets eaten there but it's nice to go bearing a legitimate success too. I didn't take it there though - most of them are vegetarians who eat eggs only as part of cakes and pastries but this is too much like an omelette - a standalone egg dish, if you get what I mean.)

I thought of many things, not the least of which was the thought of my fruit basket going from full to empty in a matter of minutes, a deal-breaker for clutter-obsessed me - the kugel used up four pears, you see - but then it is now sitting in my refrigerator, with the Spouse eating it for breakfast and as an evening snack. I have told him to give his folks some of it but he seems to have forgotten. In any case, he likes it and so I've decided it's blog-worthy.

It's sweet, of course, with all that sugar, but the onion is enough to add a strong savoury taste and I suppose I didn't expect that.

I tasted some just now, a couple of days later, and it tastes a little better cold and just out of the fridge, I have to say.

I followed this recipe with two or three changes - I added all four cups of diced pears (red ones, no idea what breed) to the mixture instead of reserving one pear for the compote. I added a grated apple to it instead. And as my springform pan has gone missing - I think it rusted and I threw it away - I used an ordinary cake tin.

And my colleagues have persuaded me to bring some anyway, so I will be taking a bit of it to the RFE tomorrow.

Have you ever made a sweet fruity omelette like this? That's what it tasted like!

Bon appetit!