Cholent

A plate of vegetarian cholent

A close-up shot of a dish with hamin

Cholent (Yiddish: טשאָלנט, tsholnt or tshoolnt) or hamin (Hebrew: חמין; also chamin in North American spelling, pronounced hamin) is a stew simmered overnight (for more than 12 hours) over a very low flame, in a slow oven, or in an electric slow cooker and served by observant rabbinical Jews for lunch on Shabbat. There are many variations of the dish, which is standard in both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi kitchens. The basic ingredients include cereals, pulses, and potatoes, with beef or chicken added in most versions. A Sephardi-style hamin typically includes whole eggs in the shell, which turn brown in the course of the slow cooking (haminados). In Ashkenazi-style cholent the dish is often enriched by the addition of kishka or helzel – a sausage casing or a chicken neck skin stuffed with a flour-based mixture. Slow overnight cooking allows the flavors of the various ingredients to permeate and produces the unique tastes that make cholent a suitable dish for celebrating the Shabbat in traditional Jewish families.

Other names

Hamin (חמין) (or chamin, pronounced ḥamin), the Sephardi version of cholent popular also in Israel, derives from the Hebrew word חם – "hot", as it is always served fresh off the stove, oven, or slow cooker. The origin of this name is the Mishnaic phrase tomnin et ha’hamin (Hebrew for "bury the hot [food]"), which essentially provides the Rabbinical prescription for keeping food hot for the Sabbath without lighting a fire.

In Germany, Holland, and Hungary the special hot dish for the Sabbath lunch is known as schalet, shalent, or shalet.. These western Yiddish words are straight synonyms of the eastern Yiddish cholent.

In Morocco, the hot dish eaten by Jews on the Sabbath is traditionally called s’hina (Arabic for "the warm dish"; Hebrew spelling סכינא). S'hina is made with chickpeas, rice or hulled wheat, potatoes, meat, and whole eggs simmering in the pot.

In Spain and the Maghreb a similar dish is called adafina or dafina, from the Arabic d’fina or t’fina for "buried" (which echoes the Mishnaic phrase "bury the hot food"). Adafina was popular in Medieval Judeo-Iberian cuisine, but today it is mainly found as dafina in Jewish communities in North Africa.

In Bukharan Jewish cuisine, a hot Shabbat dish with meat, rice, and fruit added for a unique sweet and sour taste is called oshi sabo (or osh savo).

Among Iraqi jews, the hot Shabbat meal is called tebit and it consists of whole chicken skin filled with a mixture of rice, chopped chicken meats, and herbs. The stuffed chicken skin in tebit recalls to mind the Ashkenazi helzeleh, chicken neck skin stuffed with a flour and onion mixture that often replaces (or supplements) the kishka in East European cholent recipes.

Etymology

Max Weinreich traces the etymology of cholent to the Latin present participle calentem, meaning "that which is hot" (as in calorie), via Old French chalant (present participle of chalt, from the verb chaloir, "to warm"). One widely quoted folk etymology, relying on the French pronunciation of cholent or the Central and Western European variants shalent or shalet, derives the word from French chaud ("hot") and lent ("slow"), but it is categorically rejected by professional linguists. Another folk etymology derives cholent (or sholen) from the Hebrew she’lan, which means "that rested [overnight]". This refers to the old time cooking process of Jewish families placing their individual pots of cholent into the town baker's ovens that always stayed hot and slow-cooked the food overnight.

Traditional Shabbat food

Vegetable cholent assembled in a slow cooker and waiting to be cooked on Friday afternoon before Shabbat

In traditional Jewish families, both Ashkenazi and Sephardi, cholent or hamin is the hot main course of the midday Shabbat meal served on Saturdays after the morning synagogue services. Secular Jewish families in Israel also often enjoy traditionally cooked cholent for Saturday lunch irrespective of synagogue services, but mainly in the winter, as the dish is judged to be too heavy for the hot Israeli summer. Cholent may be served on Shabbat in synagogues at a kiddush celebration after the conclusion of the Shabbat services, at the celebratory reception following an aufruf when a Jewish groom is called up to the Torah reading on the Shabbat prior to the wedding, or at bar and bat mitzvah receptions held on Shabbat morning.

Lighting a fire and cooking food are among the activities prohibited on Shabbat by the written Torah. Therefore, cooked Shabbat food, such as cholent or hamin, must be prepared before the onset of the Jewish Shabbat – by some as early as Thursdays and certainly not later than Friday afternoon. The pre-cooked food may then be kept hot for the Shabbat meal by the provision in the Rabbinical oral law, which explains that one may use a fire that was lit before Shabbat to keep warm food that was already cooked before Shabbat.

History

In the shtetls of Eastern Europe, and also in religious neighborhoods in Jerusalem and other cities in Palestine before the advent of electricity and cooking gas, a pot with the assembled but uncooked cholent was brought to the local baker before sunset on Fridays. The baker would put the pot with the cholent mixture in his oven, which was always kept fired, and families would come by to pick up their baked cholent Saturday mornings. The same practice was observed in Morocco, where black pots of s’hina cooked overnight in bakers’ ovens and were then delivered by bakers’ assistants to households on Shabbat morning.

Azhkenazi cholent recipes

File:CrockPot.JPG

A modern slow cooker (Crock-Pot) of the type used in homes to cook cholent or hamin for Shabbat. This one has a removable stoneware pot (upper left), a glass lid for easy watching of the water level (lower left), and a metal housing equipped with an electric heater (right).

There is no standard recipe for cholent. Recipes vary according to the geographic areas of Europe in which Jews lived for centuries and especially the personal preferences of the cook. The core ingredients of a traditional cholent include a good proportion of beef (shoulder, brisket, flank, or any other cut that becomes tender and flavorful in long slow cooking). The meat is quickly sauteed or fried to seal it and then combined in a pot with peeled potatoes, any type or size of beans, and grains (barley, hulled wheat, rice). The mixture is lightly seasoned, mainly with salt and pepper, and cold water is added to the pot to create a stew-like consistency during slow cooking.

While beef is certainly the traditional meat ingredient, alternative meats may include chicken, turkey, veal, frankfurters, or even goose (echoing the French cassoulet). Other vegetables such as carrots, sweet potato, tomatoes, and zucchini may be added. Spicing may be enhanced to include paprika, peppercorns, and even tomato sauce or ketchup. For additional flavor and browning, some cooks add unpeeled onions or a small amount of sugar caramelized in oil. Some are known to add also beer or whiskey for extra flavor.

One item often added to cholent is kishka (kosher stuffed derma) or helzeleh. Kishka is a type of kosher sausage stuffed with a flour mixture that includes beef, chicken, or goose fat, fried onions, spices, and possibly mashed vegetables (mainly carrots and potatoes). Traditionally, kishka was made with intestinal lining from a cow. Today, the casing is often edible sausage casings no different than that used in salami or hot dogs. Helzele is chicken neck skin stuffed with a flour-based mixture similar to that in kishka and sewed with a thread and needle to ensure that it remains intact in long cooking.

The cooking process is then one of simmering and stewing for more than 12 hours. The level of water in the pot is checked and topped several times during the long cooking to ensure that enough moisture is available and the cholent does not dry out.

Sephardi hamin recipes

The Sephardi-style hamin calls for whole, stuffed vegetables in addition to meat or chicken. Whole vegetables such as tomatoes, green peppers, eggplant halves and zucchini are stuffed with a mixture of beef and rice, and are then placed into the pot with meat or chicken and chickpeas. Sephardim also add spices such as cumin and hot peppers.

The ingredients and spiciness of hamin varies from area to area. Sephardic Jews from Iraq, for example, first stuff whole vegetables such as green and red peppers, tomatoes, eggplant halves and zucchini with a beef and rice stuffing, and then place the vegetables into the pot beside pieces of kosher meat or chicken and chickpeas to slow-cook overnight. Iraqi Jews will stuff a whole chicken with rice and place it atop the simmering stew, this version is called tebit. Jews from Morocco or Iberia make a version called dafina, which calls for spices like garlic, cinnamon, allspice, ginger, and pepper, as well as whole eggs that turn brown and creamy during the long cooking process. The Spanish cocido ('stew') containing chicken and chickpeas is a likely offshoot of the traditional hamin of the Spanish Jews.

Haminados

Sephardi-style hamin typically includes whole eggs in the shell, which are placed on top of the mixture in the stewing pot and turn brown in the course of all-night cooking. The brown eggs, called haminados (guevos haminadavos in Ladino, huevos haminados in Spanish, are shelled before serving and placed on top of the other cooked ingredients. In a Tunisian version, the brown eggs are cooked separately in a metal pot on the all-night stove with water and tea leaves (similar to tea eggs). Haminados can be cooked in this way even if no hamin is prepared. The addition of tea leaves, coffee grinds, or onion skins to the water dyes the shell purple and the white a light brown, giving the egg a smooth creamy texture. Brown eggs are a popular accompaniment to ful medames (an Egyptian dish of mashed broad beans) and in Israel they may also be served with hummus (a spread of mashed chickpeas).

See also

• Food and cooking hygiene
• Goulash
• Jewish cuisine
• Kashrut
• Kosher foods
• Kugel
• List of recipes
• Slow cooker

Other sources

• Finkel, Sara (1989). Classic Kosher Cooking. Southfield, Michigan: Targum Press Inc. ISBN 0-944070-14-0.
• Pomerantz, Kay Kantor (1997). "Come for Cholent". NY, NY: Bloch Publishing Co. ISBN 0-8197-0598-5.

External links

• What is Cholent? Why do We eat it? Recipe and insights
• cyber-kitchen.com: Cholent recipes
• jewish-food,org: Cholent archives
• myjewishlearning.com: Cholent - The Sabbath Stew
• Cholent - Many Flavors & Styles