Cholent is the iconic meat stew, many Jewish families serve every Shabbat day lunch. It is prepared on Friday afternoons and set to cook low and slow so that it could be served hot on Shabbat. The Torah asserts that we are not allowed to kindle a fire on the Shabbat (Exodus 35:3). Because of this, the Jewish community had to become creative with their cooking on Shabbat. Learn more about the invention of the slow cooker here.Â
Ashkenazi-style cholent was first mentioned in 1180, in the writings of Rabbi Yitzhak of Vienna. Before the birth of electricity in Europe, a pot with the collected, uncooked ingredients was brought to the local baker before sunset on Fridays. The lids of the pot were sealed with a paste of flour and water to ensure proper cooking.
With the baker’s oven fired up, the pots found a home. Nothing was disturbed until the next midmorning, when the baker would open the door and give the still-hot pots back to the families on their way home from Synagogue.
If making this recipe for a weekday, it should be ready in about 10 hours.
Ingredients
- 2-3 pounds short ribs
- 10 potatoes cubed
- 2 cups barley or 1 cup barley and 1 cup dried red kidney beans that have been soaked
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 4 tablespoons ground paprika
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 2 loaves prepared kishke optional
Nutritional Facts
Instructions
- Place short ribs and potatoes on the bottom of a slow cooker. Add barley and bay leaves. Sprinkle garlic, pepper and paprika over top. Drizzle honey and add water to cover.
- Lay kishke on top, cover and set to cook on low for a minimum of 10 hours.
- Note: Kishke is a sausage type dish that was originally made from intestines, but nowadays is usually made from vegetables, oil and flour or matzo meal. It is usually placed on top of cholent and served mixed in or alongside the stew.
If I may say so, kishke was not "made" from intestines. Intestines were used as a casing to stuff the kishke into. It is otherwise known as "stuffed derma" for this reason.
We still cook cholent on Friday and put it on the plata (Shabbos hot plate) b4 Shabbos. There are different halachic opinions about using a slow cooker for Shabbos. Re the baker's oven: only 60 years ago my father in law z"l was a baker and for many years the women brought their cholent pots to the bakery oven before Shabbos.
I prefer a tablespoon each of ground Curry, ground Cardamon and ground Coriander with barley and 1 cup of chulent mix beans plus a large portion of shin meat. Place to halved large onions on the Shin meat. Add water up to shin meat and let it cook until Shabbos lunch! And Yes, I add an egg for myself, hubby does not want an egg.
Whoops, place "two" halved large onions...
I really prefer the picture matching up with the recipe ingredients. I see a bulb of garlic and what looks like eggs, neither of which is listed in the recipe. Reduces my confidence in the recipe.Not the first time I have seen this with recipes on this site.
Thanks for this comment Phyllis, we do try and take real photos of our recipes but we also have some older recipes that are really great that just don't have photos and so we do the best we can.