Orthodox Jewish Dopers: A food question...

[Fenris]

Chaim, Zev?

My aunt’s husband’s parents were Orthodox. My mom remembers a food they make Friday afternoon, before the Sabbath. It was a really, really, really thick meat stew called something like “Chullen”. Apparently it sat on the stove over the Sabbath (apparently leaving the stove on low didn’t count as “cooking”.) and when the Sabbath was over you could just eat it. My mom remembers it as having a pudding-like consistancy.

Anyone ever heard of the stuff? Eaten it? Have a recipe for it?

Fenris

[IzzyR]

It’s called “cholent” and is eaten on Saturday afternoon. Recipes abound - most include meat, potatos, beans, barley, onions and such spices as desired. There are many variations. Very good stuff, and every time I bring leftovers into work my coworkers say the smell makes them salivate.

It has also become the stuff of some offbeat legend - see Cambridge University Cholent Society et al.

[Keeve]

*Originally posted by Fenris *
it sat on the stove over the Sabbath (apparently leaving the stove on low didn’t count as “cooking”.)

Exactly. All the cooking is done on Friday, before the Sabbath, and the stove simply keeps it hot.

and when the Sabbath was over you could just eat it.

Close. As Izzy pointed out, the idea is that this allows us to have a hot lunch during the Sabbath without having to do any cooking.

Others will have more access to recipes than I do. By the way, an intersting variant on this is the original Boston Baked Beans, designed by the Puritans to be put on the oven on Saturday, so that there would be no need to do any cooking on the Christian Sabbath.

[cmkeller]

Since other Orthodox Jewish dopers have chimed in about the essence of Chulent, my contribution to this thread will be the recipe, which I’ve been using since my yeshiva days (it comes from my mother, naturally). The amounts below apply to a chulent made for 4 people.

Equipment: West Bend Slow-cooker
Ingredients: 1 Onion, 1 clove garlic, 3 large Idaho potatoes, 1/4-1/2 lb. flanken (beef short rib), 1/3 c. barley, 1/4 cup chulent beans (a mix of kidney, cranberry and pinto beans - it’s available in some supermarkets as “chulent mix.”), oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, water.

Turn slow-cooker to highest setting. Heat up thin layer of oil on bottom of cooker. Slice onion and dice garlic and sautee in hot oil.

Place flanken onto sauteed onion and garlic. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and paprika. Turn over, do same to other side. Brown spiced flanken on both sides.

Cut potatoes into bite-sized cubes. Place potatoes, barley and beans into pot. Stir. Cover the mixture with water until just above the top of the ingredients. Add 1 teaspoon each of salt, onion powder, garlic powder and paprika and a dash of pepper. Stir. Let sit until water begins bubbling, then turn down heat on slow-cooker to somewhere between 2 and 3.

Serve on Shabbos afternoon. Enjoy! ;j

Variations: Barbecue sauce or honey can be added either onto the flanken or into the water. Kishka is often heated up in and served with the chulent.

[Knighted_Vorpal_Sword]

Ahhh, winter is coming . . . the season when cholent is the best!

My mother used to put chili powder in her cholent, which I loved. Our family often has chicken cholent now (substitute chicken for beef) to reduce the amount of fat.

Best served piping hot, along with very cold beer. A true delight of Shabbos (Sabbath) meals. And it makes a winter Shabbos afternoon nap that much better.

;j

[GilaB]

Some people make vegetarian (meatless) chulent, but this is an abomination and should be avoided at all costs.
When I made my first Shabbos lunch at college, I pestered my mother for exact ingredient amounts, and here they are:

Gila’s Mom’s Chulent
For every five people to be served:
1/2 cup beans, rinsed (1/4 cup white, e.g. cannelini, 1/4 cup red, e.g. kidney or cranberry)
1/4 cup barley, rinsed
3 white potatoes, peeled and chunked
1 pound beef short ribs
1 onion, chopped
1 uncut clove garlic
1 teaspoon instant coffee
2 teaspoons sugar
1/4 cup ketchup
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper to taste

1. Put the beans and barley up in the crockpot on low at least a day before you plan to serve (I tend to start them Friday morning for Saturday lunch). Alternately, soak them overnight in water to cover, and put them up in the crockpot Friday afternoon.
2. (Optional) Brown the meat.
3. Friday afternoon, add the other ingredients and stir.
4. Let cook on low for a very long time.

Sweet potatoes are also good if you want to try variations. Use short ribs, though, since the bones really do add something.
I have noticed that when napping after chulent, it does give me odd dreams - be warned!

[curwin]

I have read that cholent is one of only three really Jewish foods. Many foods are associated with Jews, but generally were variations of the local cuisine.

Chulent was necessary because of the need to have hot food on the Sabbath. Matzah is necessary because of the laws of Passover. Gefilte fish is necessary on the Sabbath to eliminate the need to remove bones (which is a forbidden activity).

[curwin]

You can find a little more information about these foods here:

http://shamash.org/lists/scj-faq/HTML/faq/19-08.html

Question 19.8:
What do bagels, lox, pastrami, falafel, garlic pickles, kishka, and kasha have to do with being a Jew?
Those are foods popular in some cultures in which Jews lived, but have zero religious significance. They are sometimes called “Jewish foods” because of their popularity among Jews, and because they bring back memories of one’s ancestors who ate similar foods.

In Ashkenazi communities, Gefilte fish goes beyond being a food of the larger community adopted by the Jewish community. In these communities, there was a custom to have fish, wine, and meat on the Sabbath. On the Sabbath, one may not separate “bad from good” such as removing bones from fish. (Good from bad, i.e. fish from bone is OK…) To simplify matters, it became popular to serve ground fish from which bones were removed.

Another Jewish dish is cholent, a stew left to simmer throughout Shabbos, because this a) avoids cooking on Shabbos b) reaffirms the belief in oral Torah, permitting the use of a fire lit before shabbos, as opposed to the Karaites, who rejected the oral Torah and didn’t use fire on Shabbos. The cholent is then eaten for the Sabbath afternoon meal.

And a little more at the bottom of this article:

http://www.kashrut.com/articles/fisharticle/