Cholent Review - Parashas Shemini

This past Shabbos Hashem blessed me with success with two cholents. The first cholent was my regular meat cholent, whose recipe I have discussed on this blog before. The second cholent (assembled by my son, Binyamin) was a version of the North African hamin called Dafina. For various reasons that cannot be discussed here, I could not follow the recipe precisely as I found it on the Internet, but I think what I did do was a good approximation and was even acknowledged as such by one the Sephardic members of the congregation. I used our other six-quart Hamilton Beach slow cooker and threw in a large cup of barley (pssst - not traditional - real Sephardim use rice in cheese cloth) and three cups (or so) of chickpeas (after having been soaked overnight), two baking potatoes and a sweet potato. I also added two large teaspoons of black pepper, two large teaspoons of salt, some paprika (maybe a teaspoon), a small amount of cayenne pepper, a quarter cup of olive oil, raw eggs (in the shells) and the coup de grace, two large teaspoons of ground cumin. I did not add any meat since I used the parve slow cooker. I put the pot on the heat at about 7:15pm and took it off at about 12:30pm the next day. It was spicy and delicious, and had an excellent consistency! The eggs, which were boiled in their shells, came out brown! I hope that I will have another opportunity to make this great cholent again soon.

Cholent Review - Parashas Tzav/Shabbos Ha-Gadol

The cholent that I made for this past Shabbos came out very well. I am now putting the carrots at bottom followed by the beans, the potatoes, the meat, and finally the barley, the spices the olive oil and the water. The layering seems to allow everything to get cooked properly. It is true that I have to stir the ingredients, after we take the cholent off of the heat source, but this is a small price to pay for good comfort food.

I would like to take this opportunity to share, regrettably, a cholent disaster that befell me on Shabbos Parashas Vakhel-Pekudei. I made two cholents, meat and vegetarian (actually, my son prepared the vegetarian cholent under my strict supervision). I have felt that the vegetarian cholents in the past have been undercooked, so I put set out Hamilton Beach parve cholent pot to high, and, to my chagrin, the vegetarian cholent was burned. True, it wasn't totally carbonized, but it had the burnt flavor, and funny, nobody ate any, even Michael B. I look forward to having another opportunity, of making a vegetarian cholent, and I hope that this next one will be blessed with the crown of success

Cholent Review - Parashas Terumah

I haven't posted a cholent review in a few weeks because I really had nothing new to add. I did a few things differently for my cholent this past Shabbos so I would like to share my experiences with my cholent making colleagues out there. I have mentioned before that my Hamilton Beach slow cooker is not as hot as the old Rival Crock Pot was, however, I have larger been able to compensate by the way I layered the ingredients as they are placed in the pot. The most important ingredient in this regard is the chopped carrots. I put all of them at the very bottom yesterday afternoon, and they all were cooked perfectly. Another ingredient that needs to be placed with care is the barley (this past Shabbos I mixed it with wheat kernels - yummy!). The barley (and wheat) are the last dry ingredients before the spices to go in. After I pour these grains in, I shake the pot so that they fall between the the meat and cut vegetables. This way, they will also be fully cooked. The last point that I want to share is also an important one. After Igor brought the pot up from the basement during kiddush, I stirred my cooked confection to make sure everything was well mixed. And so it was. For anyone out there following my reviews and making your own cholent, Ess gezunterheyt!