AtarChef Blog: kosher recipes

[Disclaimer: This is the unexpurgated version of the column published in Metro. My husband convinced me that I should tone it down since some of the imagery is, as he tactfully put it, "disgusting".]

Hot. That’s the best thing I can find to say about cholent: it’s hot. On a cold, blustery Shabbat, hot food is good.

But cholent? Think about it. It’s produced by combining a variety of raw ingredients, wetting, and maintaining for an extended period at a temperature high enough to inhibit bacteria growth but lower than active cooking. The result is a deep brown mixture with a fairly uniform consistency. This is the basic recipe for cholent.

And for compost.

Compost may be even less tasty than cholent due to its added ingredient: manure. But at least once it’s completely ready, garden compost has a very mild, neutral odor. The smell of cholent, on the other hand, percolating throughout the house on Shabbat morning, is heavy, moist, and insistent– like the breath of a Saint Bernard. The only thing I want to smell first thing in the morning is coffee.

However, I know I’m in a minority. Many consider cholent sublime. Every Jewish community has developed an individual take on the basic theme of meat, legumes, and vegetables. In some, the ingredients are cooked to a cohesive stew. Other recipes preserve the integrity of individual types of grains by encasing them in little bags before placing in the cholent pot. Variety abounds.

Whenever I admit to my cholent aversion, friends blithely assure me, “Oh, that’s just because you haven’t tasted mine! It’s great! You’ll love it!” So far I have sampled: cholent, choont, and hamin; Russian, Polish, Iraqi, Hungarian, Moroccan, Tunisian; with beans and without; even vegetarian. I’m not prejudiced; I hate them all. A quick look on Google turned up some creative variations of cholent that I have not, thank goodness, been offered: yogurt curry, chocolate, bison, pork loin. The mind boggles. But the sheer number and variety of recipes attests to the vast number of cholent lovers worldwide.

Even my dear family, who should have absorbed some of my food biases, think cholent is just yummy. So several times each winter I grit my teeth, strap on my Gulf War gas mask, and make it, to the accompaniment of rousing cheers from my loved ones.

Cholent’s other virtue for me, apart from the fact that it’s hot, is that it’s so easy to prepare. So make it if you must, and be’teavon to you! But please don’t invite me over to taste.

Tips:

• Use a heavy, good quality stainless pot with a tight lid. The bottom of the pot should be aluminum-clad to distribute the heat evenly and prevent scorching.
• Take your time with the browning step. This makes all the difference to the final color. Even the whites of the eggs acquire a deep tan.
• Add salt only after cooking, so the beans don’t toughen. Also take care not to allow the pot to boil at any point, since this will toughen the meat.
• Fatty meat stays softer and moister than lean cuts.
• It’s claimed that coriander reduces the beans’ gassy effect. I’m not convinced, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Shabbat Cholent

2 cups dried beans, preferably black
4 onions, diced
2-3 tablespoons schmaltz or oil
1 kilo meat, cut in 2 cm. cubes
4 potatoes, peeled and quartered
1 sweet potato, peeled and quartered
Fresh coriander
1-1/2 cups barley
6 eggs, uncooked
Coarsely ground black pepper
Flour
Salt

Soak beans overnight in a large amount of water.

About 3 hours before Shabbat starts, fry onions in hot oil, stirring frequently, until brown. Add meat and brown well on all sides. Add potatoes, stir, and brown slightly. Rinse the presoaked beans in fresh water and add. Add barley, eggs, pepper, and coriander. Add boiling water to cover. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of flour on the surface. Cover pot, bring almost to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer, and cook for 2-3 hours. Add salt, and if necessary add more water until the ingredients are barely covered with liquid. (The eggs shouldn’t be immersed.)

Transfer to a hot plate or very slow oven until lunchtime the following day.

Serves 4-5 as a main course, 6-8 as a side dish.
Printable recipe

A mainstay of many cuisines, rice is inexpensive, nutritious, tasty, and versatile. But for years, no matter what recipe I tried, my personalized versions had 3 unwritten steps at the end:

1. Let pan soak with boiling water and baking soda to try to dissolve the burnt rice.
2. Scrub, scrub, scrub.
3. Toss pan, and buy a new one.

This was getting ridiculous. And expensive.

You see, I tend to “multi-task” in the kitchen. Which means that while I’m preparing a meal I’m also fielding phone calls, putting in loads of laundry, helping my son with his homework, and lunging after the cat as she prepares to pounce on the countertop. Any recipe that requires a vigilant eye on the clock is doomed to failure. Rice became a rare treat, to be prepared only when I could really concentrate on the task at hand.

Then I discovered Barbara Kafka’s book: “Microwave Gourmet”. Turns out that a microwave oven does a lot more than nuke leftovers and Tivol schnitzel. I now use it to prepare a variety of dishes that once used to go on the stovetop or in the oven. Although I do think the book goes a bit overboard in touting the microwave’s advantages. Kafka explains how it can be used to deep-fry food, but careful reading of the instructions convinced me to attempt this only if I’m eager to test-drive my fire extinguisher.

Yet a microwave oven is the ideal solution for cooking perfect rice. Since it turns itself off after the allotted time, it’s impossible to overcook the rice. It effortlessly produces pilafs, where each grain is separate and fluffy. And Kafka’s book also served as my introduction to Italian risotto, a dense creamy rice dish. The traditional method of preparing risotto is so labor intensive and time consuming — involving the gradual incorporation of liquid accompanied by lots of stirring — that I’d resisted even trying it. But the microwave makes the process so quick and easy that I now prepare it routinely.

The following pilaf recipe evolved over a period time, as I experimented with Kafka’s recipes and gently weaned my finicky eaters from white rice.

Tips:

• White rice can be used, but then reduce the cooking time.
• Both wild rice (which is actually not rice at all, but a North American grain) and dried cranberries can now be found in local “natural-food” shops.
• Purists may want to cook the brown rice and the wild rice separately and then combine before serving.
• This dish can be prepared ahead and then, with the addition of a few tablespoons of water, be re-warmed in the microwave.

Rice Pilaf with Cranberries and Almonds

1-1/2 cups brown rice
1/2 cup wild rice
1/2 onion, finely diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
4-1/4 cups boiling chicken stock (or water)
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/4 c blanched slivered almonds

Saute almonds in a small amount of oil until lightly browned. Reserve some for garnish.

In a deep microwavable casserole dish, combine olive oil and diced onion. Cook uncovered on high for 4 minutes. Add brown rice and wild rice, stir to mix and cook for an additional 3 minutes.

Add salt, cranberries, the toasted almonds and boiling liquid. Stir. Cover and microwave on low for 40 minutes. (If the rice is still too hard, add a few more tablespoons of boiling stock or water and continue to cook for an additional 10 minutes.)

Garnish with reserved almonds and some dried cranberries. Serves 6-8.