Mealtime Magic: Fruity Noodle Kegel

The once-lowly and maligned pressure cooker has become the go-to kitchen appliance. This relic of your grandparents' kitchen is not only improved and safer than ever before, but it saves time, creates more flavor, and conserves energy.  Food writer and chef, Sharon Matten, has created a cookbook perfect for today’s busy Jewish kitchen. Shabbos Under Pressure is a traditional Jewish cookbook with a fresh and current feel.  Cooking with an electric pressure cooker has become the preferred way to make delicious meals for the family faster and easier.

Recipes and tips work for every brand of electric pressure cooker, whether an Instant Pot, Crock Pot Express Cooker or any other brand of pressure cooker.  Crafted with Shabbos in mind, this is a universal and everyday cookbook as well, appealing to the novice home cook and the more experienced homemaker. The recipes offer a tantalizing blend of traditional and not so traditional, written with easy to follow step-by-step language.   Each recipe is paired with beautiful full color photographs of completed dishes. Sprinkled throughout, you’ll find welcome time saving ideas, personal stories and delightful anecdotes. 

While the book is not specifically gluten free, nearly every recipe has a method for making it gluten free. Recipes range from Appetizers to Soups to Side Dishes and Vegetables to Meal, Poultry, Third Meal (Seudas Shelishis), Sauces and Dressings and Desserts. Some of the recipes in Shabbos Under Pressure include:

-    Gefilte Fish Loaves
-    Stuffed Cabbage Beef Soup
-    Cajun Fried Chicken
-    Sweet and Sour Corned Beef
-    Greek Saffron and Baby Chickpea Rice
-    Fragrant Pistachio Basmati Rice
-    Spicy Eggplant Matbucha
-    Hot Fudge Pudding Cake
-    Hot Tamale Apples

“Today’s Jewish home cooks want to feed their families with delicious, yet traditional, recipes more contemporary and faster.”  Sharon says.  “Today’s safer pressure cookers remove the fear of disaster and gives us a fabulous way to cook family meals quickly and easily.”

If you can boil it, steam it, or braise it, you can pressure cook it!  Cooking under pressure equals pressure free cooking with Shabbos Under Pressure.

Recipe and Photo reprinted with permission from
Shabbos Under Pressure by Sharon Matten
First Edition – First Impression/November 2019

Fruity Noodle Kugel
Serves 8
Pareve  ●  Easy  

My husband calls Fruity Noodle Kugel “The ugly duckling of the Shabbos meal.” I think when the kugel is as delicious and as pretty as this one, it should be called “The beautiful princess of the Shabbos meal”. Anything that has fruit cocktail and maple syrup can’t be anything but fabulous. I serve this kugel on a pedestal cake stand for dramatic effect because there is never enough drama at the Shabbos table.

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
7-inch x 3-inch round pan with a tight-fitting lid

INGREDIENTS:
Nonstick vegetable spray
12 ounces wide egg noodles, uncooked 1 (29–30 ounce) can fruit mix with
cherries in syrup
1 (20-ounce) can crushed pineapple, undrained
½ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup pure maple syrup
¼ cup canola oil 4 large eggs
¼  cup all-purpose flour

For Finishing
¼ cup light brown sugar

ADDED WATER
½ cup

1.    Spray a 7-inch x 3-inch round pan and lid with non-stick vegetable spray. Set aside.
2.    Mix the egg noodles, canned fruit (with the liquid), crushed pineapple (with the liquid), sugar, maple syrup, canola oil and large eggs together in a large bowl.
3.    Fold in the flour.
4.    Pour the mixture into the prepared pan. Cover with the tightly fitting lid.
5.    Place a rack/trivet with handles on the bottom of the EPC (Electric Pressure Cooker) pot. Add the ½ cup ADDED WATER to the bottom.
6.    Carefully set the kugel on the rack. Lock the lid and close the pressure valve.
7.    Cook for 10 minutes using manual high-pressure mode.
8.    Naturally release the pressure for 30 minutes, then manually release the pressure.
9.    Remove the kugel from the EPC pot and remove the kugel pan lid.

For Finishing
10.    Sprinkle the top of the kugel with the ¼ cup brown sugar.
11.    Place the kugel in the center of the oven and broil using medium heat for 5-7 minutes. The top of the kugel will turn a little brown and the sugar will become slightly bubbly.
12.    Serve warm or cold.

NOTES:  
•    Taking this kugel out of the pan can be a little tricky. When the kugel has cooled, run a knife around the edge of the kugel to loosen. Place a dinner plate on top of the kugel. Place one hand under the kugel pan and one hand on top of the dinner plate. In one fluid motion, flip the kugel onto the dinner plate. To get the kugel on the serving plate, repeat with a serving plate upside down on top of the inverted kugel.
•    The ADDED WATER is the water that is used to facilitate the pressurizing of the Electric Pressure Cooker.  It is not part of the actual recipe.
•    Each brand of pressure cooker has its own method for setting the mode to manual high-pressure mode.  Please see your EPC brand’s instruction manual for directions.

Sharon Matten lives in the awesome city of Chicago and writes for the Chicago Tribune Chicago Now website everydaygluten-free.com, where she talks about Living Life as a GFE (Gluten Free Eater). Sharon is a kosher food blogger on koshereveryday.com, and has also written for the Chicago Tribune Syndication, Mid-Atlantic Media Syndication, Aish.com, Mishpacha Magazine, and kosher.com.  She has done recipe development and product promotion for companies such as Swiss Diamond, Earthly Choice, Bob’s Red Mill, Manischewitz, Empire, Sophistiplate, Eli’s Cheesecake and Bosch, just to name a few.  Sharon has been a cable TV guest chef, cooking demonstrator, freelance pastry chef, Wilton Instructor, cookbook contributing editor, electrical engineer, wife and mom (not in order of importance!).  Whew!

For more information about Sharon go to www.sharonmatten.com. Be sure to follow her on Instagram @SharonMatten.