3840. WAFFLED POTATO KUGEL with BACON

Yields 12


12 ounces bacon
4 medium Russet potatoes
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
6 eggs
1 medium yellow onion, cut into chunks
3/4 cup all-purpose flour (or matzoh meal--I haven't tried that, though)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Vegetable oil, for waffle iron
Sour cream, for serving
Chives, scallions, or sautéed yellow onions, for serving

Cut the bacon into 1/2-inch pieces and fry in a large skillet over medium-high heat, until cooked to your liking. Drain, reserve the fat for greasing the waffle iron, and set aside.

Peel the potatoes and cut into large chunks, then immediately submerge in cold water to keep them from oxidizing (turning dark).

In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and set aside.

In a food processor, pulse the onion chunks until finely chopped. Stir into the eggs.

Drain the potatoes and use the same food processor bowl to process the potatoes in batches (2 should be sufficient, depending on the size of your processor). Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add some lemon juice (half of it, if you're working in two batches), and process again until finely pureed. Transfer to a strainer placed over a bowl and press to squeeze as much moisture out as possible. If you have a cheesecloth, line the strainer with it, and once all the potatoes are processed, squeeze out as much moisture as you can.

Add the potatoes to the egg mixture, followed by the flour, salt, pepper, and most of the bacon pieces (reserve a little for topping, if you'd like). Stir until well combined.

Preheat a waffle iron and grease with the bacon grease you reserved earlier (or vegetable oil). Drop a 1/4 cup of kugel batter (this may depend on the size of your waffle iron, so experiment to find what works best) onto each grid. Cooking them will take longer than typical waffles—just watch for when there's less steam escaping the sides of the waffle iron. This yielded 12-13 waffles on my big Belgian waffle iron, so the recipe will feed 6-4 people, depending on how hungry they are.

Serve immediately topped with sour cream and/or crispy bacon bits and/or chives and/or scallions and/or sautéed yellow onion.


bacon recipe source: Danguole Lekaviciute (@Danguole_L), 10th Kitchen, March 23, 2015