posted
Hey! I just learned something important by reading about cholent!
I have always had bad luck cooking beans -- seems no matter how long I soak, no matter how long I simmer, they don't soften properly.
Now, it's been a long time since I've tried, but after reading this (see below), I wonder if I always added tomatoes or something else acidic to the beans before they were cooked? Seems like this is a tip that I should have heard before!
quote: Choose whatever beans you like or have on hand what kind you cook makes little difference in flavor. Navy beans, lima beans are common but there is no law against using black beans, red beans or even fava beans. Your cholent will gain in eye-appeal if you use two or three kinds of beans with different sizes and color. (The only kind you should not use is canned beans.) If your recipe includes acidic ingredient, such as tomato sauce, stir in those ingredients only after the beans are fully cooked. In acidic liquid beans will not soften and you may end up with a wonderful cholent but your family will crack or break their crowns while attempting to bite through the beans.
posted
You can also just add a little baking soda to neutralize the acid if you put the soaked dried beans and tomatoes both in. I do it all the time.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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quote: originally posted by Tante Shvester on the Jello thread: You think we can get the LDS crowd to start eating cholent?
I think you are well on your way. But I won't be heating it on a blech .
Besides, we are supposed to have dried beans and grains in our food storage, so it seems like a perfect fit!
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posted
When I was at my friend's this weekend, her husband (in charge of the cholent-making), lined the pot with an oven bag (he used the ones intended for ham). It made the clean-up extremely simple. I absolutely hate cleaning the pot the next day.
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posted
They make ones just for crock-pots too. The problem is it messes with the liquid balance something awful. But yeah, I should dig out the box I have of them and go back to using 'em.
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posted
Less. It keeps the liquid from boiling off as much. It can also mean that the temperature needs to be a touch higher.
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posted
Interesting. So what happens when you use it for something like our favorite cranberry chicken that takes no added liquid, just meat and sauce? More sauce? And for a soup/stew, you could just adjust the liquid down and get the right consistency?
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posted
It's been a while since I used the things. But my memory is that saucy things end up with watery sauce, and that adjusting the liquid is possible but annoying.
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quote:Originally posted by Uprooted: I have always had bad luck cooking beans -- seems no matter how long I soak, no matter how long I simmer, they don't soften properly.
Uprooted, I didn't know about the acid bit affecting beans either, so thanks for the tip.
Here's what I do, and I've never had a problem with hard beans. Cover beans with liquid so it's an inch or so above the level of the beans. Bring to a boil, then turn heat off and let soak until the next day. Change the water, then cook until soft.
By doing that, most of the stuff that causes gas leaves the beans and the beans cook faster the next day. My chile never causes anyone to have the farts.
I also cook the beans all the way through before adding anything else to the beans. On the other hand, I haven't ever made cholent either.
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posted
Does anyone have a recipe for chopped chicken livers. I use to live in Chicago and loved the ethic foods I could eat.
Posts: 28 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Do you mean frozen chopped chicken livers? Iowa is such a white bread place. When Kiraa stopped at our local taco place, she asked what kind of tacos do you have. Hamburger. We missed tiny Mexican places with 50 dofferent menu items. miss lemon grass chicken.Cuban sandwiches,pyrogies, decent lox.
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1 lb chicken livers 4 Tbs schmaltz (rendered chicken fat) 2 onions, diced 3 hard boiled egg yolks 1 tsp salt 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Wash the livers and remove discolored spots. Drain any liquid.
There's a whole bit in this recipe about how you're supposed to saute 1 onion in 2 Tbsp of schmaltz, then discard that onion, keeping the schmaltz for the next step, but I just saute both onions in 4 Tbs of schmaltz, set the onions aside and then add them both back in later. I guess fresh onion would give it a different bite.
Cook the livers in the onion-flavored schmaltz in a skillet for about 10 minutes. Remove any membrane. Chop or grind the egg yolks, liver, (and the onions). Add the salt and pepper and mix.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
While I'm in here I looked up cholent, and found recipes for:
Meat Cholent (Brisket is the meat) Potato Cholent Cholent with Knaidel Quick Kasha Cholent (which sounds like it defeats the purpose. It only cooks two hours) And Quick Lamb Cholent. (Same here) (Apparently lamb isn't meat?)
These are from my Jennie Grossinger book.
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posted
Quick cholent is a bit of a paradox. Lamb is indeed meat. The recipe list has me scratching my head.
Any liver made in a kosher recipe must be broiled before anything else is done to it. My son and I prefer chopped beef liver to chopped chicken liver, but I guess that is a matter of personal preference.
And -- hooray -- the cholent thread has stayed on the first page longer than the jello thread, and is catching up to it in amount of posts. Perhaps it just got a slow start because it was born on Erev Shabbos.
posted
I make a vegetarian cholent, based on a recipe I got from the Lubavitch cookbook, The Spirit and Spice of Kosher-Jewish Cooking. I put in barley and mixed beans - kidney and lima, predominantly, but I also include a few navy beans, pea beans, pink beans, red beans, whatever I happen to have in the cupboard. On occasion I have included chickpeas. I mix in a fried onion or two for flavor, and the secret ingredient ( ) - ketchup. I layer sliced potatoes on top. It comes out tasty and my family always enjoys it.
Once, when I got home late and didn't have time to cook, I made a quick cholent by heating together the following ingredients till edible and throwing them in the crockpot: 1 cup of barley, 2 cans kidney beans, 1 can chickpeas, 1 can Heinz vegetarian baked beans, a handful of baby lima beans, some dried onion flakes, a chopped raw onion, about a 1/4 cup ketchup, and some sliced potato. I was afraid it would turn out inedible, but it turned out tasty.
Posts: 5771 | Registered: Nov 2000
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posted
Well, what do I know from kosher law? Mine certainly isn't when I use butter instead of schmaltz.
But I would have assumed that Grossinger's was kosher. Are calf's brains kosher?
They also have a different recipe for chopped liver, which can be calf, beef or chicken. The recipe is a little different, but not much. I prefer chicken.
Then there's the recipes for vegetarian chopped liver, and dairy liver. Dairy liver is actually vegetarian, the vegetarian liver has sardines in it.
BTW, the book doesn't claim that lamb isn't meat, it's just the weird juxtaposition against the "Meat Cholent" in the previous recipe.
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posted
I've had lots of kinds of vegetarian liver, but never with sardines in it. I've had it with nuts, with peas, with green beans, with eggs, with eggplants. Oil and onions are invariably involved.
Calves brains can be kosher, but good luck finding any.
I like lamb in my cholent. But then again, I like it when it is not in my cholent, too.
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posted
I think I may have had vegetarian liver with sardines (that's not really vegetarian, you know ), but more frequently, it has had the ingredients Tante Shvester has mentioned.
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posted
"I like lamb in my cholent. But then again, I like it when it is not in my cholent, too."
Hear hear!
As I said before, I'd never heard of cholent before, probably because it's very function specific. Sounds like you could cook almost anything in a crock pot and call it cholent. But does anyone make cholent on Tuesday?
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quote:Sounds like you could cook almost anything in a crock pot and call it cholent.
Bingo! Give the man a cookie. [Wink]
It there any prohibition on turning off a switch on the sabbath? I mean, it's the same amount of work. So if you prepare cholent in a crock pot on friday, can you turn off the pot on saturday morning, or do you have to wait for sundown?
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quote:It there any prohibition on turning off a switch on the sabbath? I mean, it's the same amount of work. So if you prepare cholent in a crock pot on friday, can you turn off the pot on saturday morning, or do you have to wait for sundown?
There is such a prohibition (keep in mind that "work" is not a good translation of melacha). So either you leave the empty crock pot on, or you have it on a timer (what many observant Jews call "Shabbos clocks").
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quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: I'm wondering if I should ever try "real" gefilte fish, since I love the "fake" stuff.
Would it just spoil it for me?
Maybe, maybe not. My kids like both (but prefer the good stuff). Does having steak mean you won't enjoy a burger ever again?
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posted
You can not turn off the pot. Or any light switches. Whatever is on at the start of Shabbos stays on. Unless it is on a timer that automatically turns it off without any action on your part.
Edit -- or what rivka said
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Mushy Peas and Beef bourguignonne have both done 12 hours.
According to my friend June, Mushy Peas must be cooked for "ever." I tried to get her to be more specific, but she says that's a unit of time.
Directions:
Cook for 1 ever.
That's a metric ever, by the way, not a standard one.
Sounds like cholent needs to be cooked between 1 and 2 evers.
Split pea and navy bean will do in 4 to 6 hours, if they're soaked overnight first. Guess they don't count.
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posted
My Cuban cookbook, vintage 80 years or so ago, often includes such directions as "cook until done" and quantities such as "some."
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posted
Especially when my brother-in-law is staying with us, I make vegetarian chili. Cholent-style, on the blech. But we never call it cholent. It is chili.
Also, sometimes I make a thick tasty soup, like mushroom barley or pea. We don't call that cholent, either, we call it soup.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
No cholent in our house this week. But there was about a gallon and a half of chicken soup for us to slurp. It worked, too. We are all starting to feel better.
(and I hate to admit it, but the only other thing anyone felt up to eating was Kojel -- Kosher Jello)
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posted
My parents came up this weekend to visit. My mom brought a pot in a cooler, with all of the cholent ingredients already in it (kiske-based). My dad carried it into my house and says to me, "Don't argue. She was afraid that you aren't eating well enough." My mom is one of those stereotypical Jewish mothers that says things like, "Have more cake. It's good for you."
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