My grandmother’s comfort food of choice was a bowl of buttered egg noodles tossed with cottage cheese and sour cream. Called “lokshen mit kaese” in Yiddish, this carb-fest can be savory or sweet, elaborate or plain, not so much a recipe as a mild template with countless variations.
But Grandma never varied it. She was hardly an off-the-cuff cook. In her austere Brooklyn kitchen, she would unfailingly mix tuna salad with sweet pickle relish, serve vegetarian borscht with Saltines and always seasoned her lokshen mit kaese with cinnamon, raisins and a tiny sprinkle of sugar. It was a little sweet, very creamy, slightly tangy from the sour cream and scented with spice.
My mother was more adventurous and had her own ideas concerning the dish. She liked those creamy, cottage cheese-filled egg noodles savory and decided they made a perfect nest for any and all leftovers she could pull from the fridge: a dollop of whitefish salad; a slice of meatloaf; a takeout container of stir-fried chicken and snow peas. The mellow, forgiving noodles welcomed it all.
I stick close to my grandmother’s minimalism in my take on this pantry-friendly recipe, keeping it to a handful of ingredients to extract the most flavor. But like my mother, I’m always excited to try something new.
The result is both simple and unexpected, at least for lokshen mit kaese. The first thing I did was to nix the cheese and double down on the sour cream, to create a silky texture without the bits of curd. Then, to highlight the egg factor of the noodles, I added actual jammy eggs, breaking them apart over the bowl to catch every drip and crumble of yolk.
This was a fine, filling bowl of yellow-hued nourishment, but it still wanted a pop of color and zip. A handful of chopped scallions and dill gave it verdant freshness, and a squeeze of lemon amped the acidity.
It was very good, but it still seemed incomplete. I remembered the sweet chewiness that my grandmother’s raisins gave the dish and realized that a textural contrast was what I missed. A sprinkle of poppy seeds lent it the gentle, crunchy nuttiness that was needed to bring together all the elements. And they reminded me of my mother and grandmother, both of whom loved a poppy seed bagel — yet another carb-filled comfort food that unites us three.
