digest
Short Summary
Main recommendation: Make this family-heirloom cholent using flanken or marrow bones, kishka, barley, beans, potatoes with skins on, and a seasoning blend of paprika, pepper, and honey, with no ketchup or barbecue sauce, cooked slowly for about 18 to 20 hours. The video presents it as the most requested recipe from Jamie Geller's book, first published in the New York Times, and notes that the original family recipe had no measurements.
Key Points
- The cholent's flavor relies on a specific combination: kishka, plus honey, pepper, and paprika, rather than sweet sauces.
- Fatty, bone-in meat is recommended because it stays soft and buttery during long cooking; very lean, red-looking cuts may dry out.
- Potatoes go in first, partly for flavor and partly to line the pot and help prevent burning.
- Layering matters: the kishka is placed in the middle so the other ingredients stay arranged, and water is poured over everything to just cover the ingredients.
- The New York Times version substituted chicken or beef broth for the seasoning blend, which the speaker says is not the authentic version.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Peel-free potatoes: leave the skins on red-skin potatoes, cut them as desired, and place them on the bottom of the pot.
- Meat: use flanken or marrow bones with fat; cut into large chunks, and cook with the bones in.
- Barley and beans: add roughly a quarter to a third of a bag of barley (some use more, up to three-quarters) depending on the number of guests, with slightly less beans than barley; some soak their beans first.
- Pepper goes in at the start so it seasons the meat; the remaining spices are added later.
- Seasoning: about one heavy tablespoon and one lighter tablespoon of the spice blend, sprinkled over the top, followed by a light coat of paprika.
- Honey: drizzle in a circular motion so it distributes evenly, which helps create a sticky consistency.
- Kishka: place a whole piece in the center, optionally cut it in the middle.
- Water: add enough to just cover everything except the kishka; cook on medium for about 18 to 20 hours.
- Serving: let guests serve themselves so they can choose the ingredients they like.
- The original family recipe was a secret passed down without measurements; Jamie's husband only shared it with her in detail one time when he was sick.
- Leftover cholent can be sliced and eaten again during the week.
- The speaker says some people use ketchup or barbecue sauce in their cholent, which she feels ruins the dish's intended flavor.
Bottom Line
This is a long-simmered, meat-and-kishka cholent where the honey-paprika-pepper seasoning, not sauce, defines the taste, and the printed recipe appears in Jamie Geller's first book, Quick and Kosher Recipes from Abroad to New (not posted online).
