Men make cholent. This doesn't mean women don't (this woman certainly does...). But what I mean is everyone's father/boyfriend/husband/brother knows how to make it, and they have their own special additions. The particular variant I grew up eating is pared down to basics, easy to throw together and even easier to cook.
Cholent is all beans and meat, with the most expensive ingredient being the meat. Bare bones of what you need for four people (4 people! 4 of them! If you live by yourself, you'll be drowning in cholent if you don't at least halve your recipe!) is 2 cups of dried beans, 1 cup of dried barley, and 3 pounds of meat. The meat should be decently marbled; if it's too lean you'll be chewing on shoe leather, but if it's too marbled you'll be drowning in grease. Generic stew beef is perfectly acceptable. Just make sure you cut it in chunks. For flavor, you'll need 1 whole onion, a bunch of paprika, a couple bay leaves, dried ginger (optional), salt, and pepper. The only caveat is that because the beans need a good soaking, you have to start 2 days before you want to eat it.
Before I get to the recipe, I want to talk about beans. You can use pretty much any dried bean mixture you want. I'm particularly partial to 1 cup (at least) of dried large lima beans, and then a cup of whatever else, usually kidney or pinto or navy beans. I've never used black eyes peas (don't use lentils), but pretty much anything is fair game.
So, let's say your beans and barley are sitting in the pantry, the meat is cut in chunks in the fridge, and you want cholent on Friday night. That means on Wednesday night before you go to sleep, you measure your 2 cups of beans into a really large bowl (they swell up like you wouldn't believe), pour in water until the level is twice what it was with just dried beans, leave it on your counter, and go to sleep. The next morning, transfer them to the fridge before you leave for work/school.
When you come home on Thursday, get out your crock pot. Drain the beans, and dump them into the pot. Measure one cup of barley, and dump that in too. Cut an onion in half from stalk to root end, slice it up, and throw it in. Toss in ~2 bay leaves, a very generous amount of paprika (the sweet kind is what I'd use here), on the scale of tablespoons... probably ~2-3. For the dried ginger, I'd do ~2 teaspoons. Grind a generous amount of pepper in, and sprinkle some salt in, too. Salt and pepper can be adjusted post-cooking to taste. Heat up a pan, and brown your meat chunks. Dump them into the crock pot. Now fill the crock pot with water until the water level is 1-1.5 inches above the beans and meat. At this point, I like to take a large spoon and attempt to mix everything so it's more evenly distributed. Sometimes it works, sometimes I just end up smushing the beans and barley around. It doesn't matter either way. Cover the crock pot, turn it on low, and go to sleep.
When you wake up in the morning on Friday, check the water level in your pot. If it's dropped below the surface of the beans, etc., add more. When you come home, you'll have dinner all set. Usually cholent needs more salt. Only once in 25 years of me being alive has it almost had too much. Oh, a caveat about cholent; you will think you want more. You will be like "Hey, I'm not full! I want another bowl!" and then all of a sudden, "Oh sweet merciful lord I cannot move from this table.... unngnghghghghghghngnnghgnghghghhh... there is a lead shotput in my belly." Be careful. Also, this goes extremely well with vodka toasts. You can do 4-5 shots with a meal of cholent and feel as sober as an observant Mormon. Cholent will keep you full practically forever. It's hot, thick, rich, and the beans get gloriously creamy and the meat falls apart.
Dude food, comfort food, Jewish soul food, whatever. It's an awesome winter dish.
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