How to make Grandma Ann's award winning Lithuanian Kugelis. This dish was made often for the holidays and is the perfect comfort food for your next meal. Find the recipe at www.grandma-anns.com
I discovered you can freeze Kugelis. I cut serving size pieces, wrapped it in plastic wrap. When thawed, fried in pan with a little butter and it came out great.
@@GrandmaAnns My friend is from Lietuva, I followed your recipe, thank you! Lots of work but fun. Most recipes have evaporated milk I tried it once and it was just too sweet. Don't think they use it over there (??)
This is the Lithuanian potato dish ~ Kugelis. There are many tweeks to any recipe and the old Jewish recipes didn’t use bacon however most old recipes called for pork fletch = bacon. This is a great recipe.
My Lithuanian family always used sautéed cubed bacon and onion in Kugelis. We are Catholic, not Jewish, so bacon was in it. Fewer eggs, also. Most families have some minor differences in amounts used!
OH MY GOODNESS!!! I am salivating while I watch this, and I thought "kugel" was a Jewish concept, THIS BLEW MY MIND RIGHT OFF!.. delicious and amazing!,.. thanks.. we are not so different, after all!!!! xoxoxoxo
If that pound of bacon is half-frozen, a knife will make WAY shorter work of dicing it. The variation we inherited from my Lithuanian grandmother used milk instead of eggs, and something like tapioca and no potato starch. Drying the grated potatoes was emphasized, accomplished by squeezing out the moisture in a twisted bath towel. Of course, there are undoubtedly many versions of what my father called “Lithuanian Wedding Cake.”
Cool, thanks! Our grandmothers recipe that beat every contestant at the World Lithuanian Center in Lemont, IL 2 years in a row - just like lasagna there are many ways to make it. Some just taste better
@@GrandmaAnns i guess every family has their own one. I will try yours soon. My mom used to used to do it very "vegan" but over time gave in and started putting hot milk and some bacon:)
We do the crust last. Butter on top and broil last. After toothpick comes out clean and fully cooked of course. Kugelis is better in the USA. I've tried both.
I would call this "Heart Attack Pie." I am descended from Lithuanian parents, and my mom used to make this for dinner when I was young. Unfortunately, she died when I was 15, and I never knew how to make this dish. I don't remember her making this with meat, but she probably used leftover bacon drippings. And we did eat it with sour cream. Honestly, it wasn't one of my favorite dishes, and I believe we were mostly fed this because it was filling. Because I care about my family's health, I will never serve this to them. However, I understand and respect the heritage and culture from which it arose.
A few tips. I found using RED potatoes do not oxidize as fast. When grating put a piece of the onion in each batch. I use a food processor. Prepare eggs, butter, bacon first, grate potato last. Prep peel and cut potatoes and place in cold water.
Also Yukon Gold potatoes work very well. And I would do the same, put some onion in there while grading. Or pre-chop onions and put in the bowl and stir while the potatoes are coming through the grater. I never used butter, still taste great.
Regarding the meat and this being a "holiday" dish. It is a special dish due to the meat! Meat was not a commodity for peasants, so when a holiday came around, with any luck a little meat, usually a pork bone,,, would be had and added to the potato's for that special holiday flavor!
Hah, my grandma too. We use 30lbs of potatoes for holiday batches and I've been helping to make it since I was a little kid. You could really skip the eggs as my family's recipe didn't have them, (and like the guy mentioned in the video....) the difference was that we'd bake it, leave it in the fridge to cool overnight, then use a skillet and a little bit of oil to brown both sides.... if you leave it cool it will be solid enough to cut up into slices to fry/eat without it falling apart and you won't notice the eggs missing. Just use a little tiny bit of flour and drain a little of the liquid off the grated potatoes. Cut it into like 1 inch wide and 4 inch long slices and fry it... it's awesome.
You don't have to use eggs if you can't eat them, but for texture to be a bit denser you can put just tiny bit , a spoon or twoo of flour or 1 spoon of cornstarch and mix it well. It happened to housewives in life when they ran put off eggs, so this solution was good enough... You dont have tp use lard too, you can use vegetable oil instead butter too...
You can make them without eggs. Just use hot oat milk, oil, salt and pepper, onions, fried mushrooms and bake in the oven. For the toping can use fried onions with mushroom and oat cream.
Not something we ate everyday, only on holidays, maybe twice a year. Not many desk jobs years ago so they probably burned it off pretty quickly in the old country.
The thing is , that we Lithuanians are used to potatoes and lard, and lots of it and we are adapted to this kind of food and digesting it perfectly well :D
Rudy Alan My parents and all friends and family that we grew up with were Lithuanian and this is how we made it except maybe not the butter, sometimes some cream maybe I think
OMG, this recipe is SO wrong. It's forbiden to put bacon in it, when you think about it, you can't put pork in it, beef, turkey or any kind of meat. you can only put chicken in it, or else it won't be kugelis
Only if your making it kosher. Please do research. You would find out the there was a big Jewish population in Lithuania. So recipes get modified to one's liking.Please don't be that guy that opens your mouth before you think.
