Kugelis

Ingredients

• Potatoes — floury variety2 kg
• Smoked bacon — diced300 g
• Onions3
• Eggs3
• Milk — hot200 ml
• Soured cream — to serve300 ml
• Marjoram1 tsp
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Render the bacon to crackling, add the chopped onion and fry it golden.

   18 min

2. 2

   Grate the potatoes finely and squeeze them lightly, collecting the liquid in a bowl.

   25 min

3. 3

   Let the liquid stand ten minutes, pour off the water and stir the settled starch back in.

   12 min

4. 4

   Add the hot milk and the hot fat with the onion and crackling, stirring quickly.

   6 min

5. 5

   Work in the eggs, salt, pepper and marjoram to an even thick mass.

   5 min

6. 6

   Pour it into a greased dish in a four-centimetre layer and level it.

   5 min

7. 7

   Bake at 180 °C for an hour and a half, to a deep golden crust, and rest it twenty minutes.

   100 min

About the dish

The potato is grated raw and not wrung out fully. The starch that settles from the squeezed liquid goes back into the mass — it binds the bake without flour and without excess egg.

Hot rendered fat with onion is poured straight into the grated mass. It partly cooks the starch and the bake sets dense rather than loose.

Kugelis bakes an hour and a half at a moderate heat. On a high one the top burns before the middle is hot and raw potato remains inside.

Worth knowing

• — Grated potato darkens within minutes. Work fast and add the hot fat the moment the mass is grated.
• — Use a deep, smallish dish. In a wide one the layer comes out thin and the kugelis dries instead of staying moist.
• — Cut kugelis only once rested. Hot, it falls apart; twenty minutes later it holds and cuts into clean pieces.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

14 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

48 g

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• Cepelinai — Large potato dumplings with a meat filling, named after airships. Served with crackling and soured cream.
• Šaltibarščiai — A cold beetroot soup on kefir, vivid pink, with cucumber, dill and boiled potatoes served alongside.
• Šakotis — A spiked tree cake baked layer by layer on a turning spit over a fire.