Recipe of the Week: Sweet & Savory Pear Kugel

 

Drooling and driving. It has many causes. Maybe you're driving by a bakery in the pre-dawn hours when all the fresh goodies are coming out of the ovens. Perhaps you pass a billboard with a gigantic juicy hamburger, several feet tall, staring back at you with its glistening onions and pickles. Or, perhaps you hear something delicious on the radio. Certainly this is one of the less common causes of drooling and driving, but it happened to us just the other day! Flipping stations, we heard the word "pears" (seriously, we're attuned to that sort of thing) and stopped. It was our local NPR affilate and on the eve of Hanukkah, a guest was sharing her favorite holiday recipes. Well, this lady had such a way with words, we could practically taste the dense pear and prune sweetened bread and savory sauted onions as she described her go-to recipe for kugel. Don't worry, we didn't try to write it down as we drove. We arrived safely home, looked it up on the Web and now share it with you. Happy Hanukkah and happy eating!

Sweet & Savory Pear Kugel

You need:

• 5 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 pounds ripe Bosc pears
• 2 small onions (about 1/2 pound), peeled and cut into 1-inch dice
• salt to taste
• 1/2 loaf thick white bread, about 7 ounces
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 8 tablespoons butter or pareve margarine, melted
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups pitted prunes
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• juice of one lemon
• 1 cup+ water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Grease 9-inch springform pan with 2 tablespoons of the vegetable oil
3. Peel the pears and cut all but one of them into 1-inch cubes
4. Heat the remaining 3 tablespoons of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat
5. Lightly saute the onions until translucent; remove from heat, salt lightly, cool slightly
6. Soak the bread for a few seconds in lukewarm water and squeeze dry
7. Put bread in large bowl and mix with 1/4 cup of the sugar and butter/margarine; stir in the eggs, onions and half of the diced pears
8. Pour batter in springform pan and bake for 2 hours
9. While kugel is baking, cook the compote - in a heavy saucepan combine 1 cup water, 1/2 cup sugar, prunes, cinnamon, lemon juice and remaining pears, set on medium-high heat and cook uncovered for 30 minutes
10. Finely grate the remaining pear and stir into the cooked compote
11. When kugel is finished baking, remove from the oven and set on rack to cook for about 20 minutes
12. Remove kugel from pan onto serving platter, spoon half of compote over kugel, serve the remaining compote on the side.

Looking for more great fruit recipes? Click here!

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