SUNDAY WITH MARLENA- POTATO KUGEL

This is a great side dish for meat meals since it is made with vegetable oil rather than butter. Of course, I broke all the Kosher rules by adding grated cheese to this dish (one of Marlena's suggestions) and serving it with a steak sandwich. Even so it was a very tasty side dish and any left overs would be good reheated with some eggs for breakfast.

serves 6-8

41/2lbs potatoes
2 eggs lightly beaten
8-12 Tbs matzo meal
2 tsp salt more or less
3-4 onions grated- use small onions*
1/2 C vegetable oil
black pepper to taste.

preheat oven to 375


Peel (I didn't, left the skins on) the potatoes and grate. Place the grated potatoes in a large bowl and add the eggs, matzo meal, salt and pepper. Mix together well. Mix in the onions and and 6Tbs of the oil. Mix well to combine.

Pour the remaining oil into a baking pan large enough to spread the potatoes out to a thickness of no more than 11/2-2 inches. Heat the pan in the oven for about 5 minutes until the oil is very hot. Carefully remove the pan from the oven and spoon the potato mixture into the pan, letting the hot oil bubble up around the sides and top. The sizzling oil helps to crisp the kugel as it cooks.
Bake the kugel for about 45-60 minutes or until tender and golden brown and crisp on top. Serve cut into wedges.

*don't use a food processor to grate the onions, the action of the knife creates a bitter flavor as it breaks down the cells. I hate to grate onions..so I just finely chopped mine and it turned out well.

For a dairy meal you can make this kugel with any type of flavorful cheese. I used a mixture of Colby/Jack cheeses. Add about 3C of cheese to the potato mixture, mix well and continue as above.
This dish really made the house smell good as it baked. This is a great accompaniment to almost anything.

Mel and Shankari have some great Sunday with Marlena recipes for you, check out their blogs.