One Great Dish: Nightwood's Brisket Kugel

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Dec 18, 2012 10:20PM

Photo credit: Chicagoist/Chuck Sudo

We're on record about our love of Nightwood's Sunday brunch. The execution of the dishes are impeccable. The commitment to seasonality and local ingredients is unwavering even as we enter the months of "porridge again?!?!" and clearing our pantry of canned vegetables. But it's the menus that always hook us—like snowflakes, no two are ever completely alike.

So we're always comparing the upcoming week's menu to the previous week's, looking for the new dishes that may or may not return to hold space with the cheeseburger, bagel sandwiches and the doughnuts. One we're hoping returns is this amazing brisket kugel, topped with a fried egg and served with a mix of greens dressed perfectly. Given the dish is nothing but potato and brisket, this kugel was surprisingly light. The greens, a mix of sweet and bitter leaves, were perfect for late autumn. Hopefully Jason Vincent and company can get their hands on some local potatoes to recreate this dish, because it deserves an encore.

We'll use this as an opportunity to remind readers that Jason Vincent is one of the many fine chefs we have lined up for our soup kitchen event Jan. 24 in the new "Ramova Room" at Benton House in Bridgeport. We'll have more details on that as they come to us.