Noodle Kugel

This recipe is from Sylvia Mangalam's Cooking Where Cultures Meet and is quite delicious. Mangalam draws on her family's Russian background and on South Indian and Pakistani cooking in this unique book. Her husband is from Kerala, India. Mangalam learned about South Indian and Pakistani cooking while living in Lahore.

The Noodle Kugel recipe is Russian.  Mangalam writes: "Mama used to make this in her little one-burner cast-iron stove top oven. It can be made just as well in a regular oven, in a bread pan."

3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 lemon, grate rind only
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons honey
2/3-3/4 lb cottage cheese or ricotta cheese
1/2 cups raisins
1/2 cup nuts
1/2 lb broad noodles

Beat eggs, flavourings and honey. Add to this the cottage cheese and combine well. The mix should be lumpy. Add raisins, nuts, noodles and fold together. Bake at 325F for 1 hour. Serve with yogurt.

Option: This can be a savoury dish as well. Instead of these sweet items (honey, raisins and nuts and vanilla), substitute 1 fried onion, 1 cup grated sharp cheese,  and/or bits of ham, bacon, friend cabbage or carrots, soybeans or other beans. In either case, this is very good cold as a finger foo, or slathered with yogurt, sour cream or jam or in the case of a savoury dish, mustard or horseradish.