Casserole Crazy

Saturday, my friend Lacey and I entered The Brooklyn Kitchen’s Anything But Apple Pie cooking competition, the goal being to cook with apples, making anything but apple pie, natch. The event, which was a great way to ring in the fall, was a benefit for the Greenpoint Dutch Reform Church’s Wednesday Soup kitchen (which I’ve cooked for in the past).

At first, we had the idea to deep fry apple slices and bake them with fontina and gruyere, making an apple parm kind-of dish, but considering neither of us has extra money to toss around, we opted instead to use what I already had on hand which happened to be egg noodles, shallots from the green market and about five ounces of goat cheese. I also had eggs and five medium green apples, making a noodle kugel the obvious choice. Other than picking up some extra goat cheese (more on that later) and Lacey having to run out at the last minute to get vegetable broth—she’s a vegetarian and all I had was chicken broth—we used only ingredients that were already in my kitchen.

The dish was wonderful; we couldn’t help picking at it before we left the house. I even garnished it with some green apple skin. I was sure we’d win. But when we got there, we quickly realized the competition—even though we only had three competitors—was fierce. One entrant had made apple turnovers (close to a pie, yes, but absolutely delicious) one had made a turkey meatball and apple soup and another made pulled pork, Memphis style (with slaw on top) with apple slaw. Anyone who knows me outside of this blog knows that pulled pork, Memphis style, on a sesame bun is my favorite thing in the entire world to eat. You also know that I believe the apple is the most perfect fruit in the world.

Well, the judges didn’t agree with me, on either count. Their top two favorites were the turnovers and the soup—both wonderful, I’ll admit. They loved our kugel, and said it was everything a kugel should be, but that the goat cheese overpowered the apple. But hell, we’d gone out to get more goat cheese, because as far as Lacey and I are concerned, there’s no such thing as too much cheese—especially goat cheese.

If you agree, try our Apple and Goat Cheese Kugel, after the jump.

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

7 tbsp butter (softened)
3 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow, finely chopped
6-8 shallots, chopped
4 medium green apples, cored and diced
12 oz large egg noodles
6 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup chicken (or vegetable) broth
8-10 oz. goat cheese, crumbled
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375ºF.

Cook the egg noodles in boiling salted water, just under al dente. Drain and set aside to cool.

In a skillet over medium heat, sauté the onions in olive oil and two tbsp of butter. Let the onions sauté, stirring frequently, until they are translucent and beginning to brown on the edges. Add the apples and saute another 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl combine the broth, eggs and remaining butter. When they are mixed, add in the noodles, ensuring they’re all coated. Add the onions and apples, mix well, add the cayenne, salt and pepper generously. Add in most of the goat cheese, stir and transfer to a greased or buttered 2 3/4 – 3 qt baking dish.

Bake, covered for 30 minutes. Remove from the oven, add remaining goat cheese to the top and bake uncovered 30 minutes or until the kugel is set and the goat cheese on top is beginning to brown.

Let sit for 10 minutes before eating.