Cholent

This is a Jewish dish. The recipe came from a friend of mine years ago and it has never failed me — my family loves it. The barley is everyone’s favorite part.

Kishke is a sausage that in my friend’s case was made with chicken, chicken fat and so on, but since I’m not Jewish I just use Polish sausage. The flavor of the finished product is exactly the same.

Since this dish has to cook for so long I think it’s easier to assemble it the night before and refrigerate it until the next morning - that way all that’s left to do is to turn the stove on and boil some water.

Cholent

2 lbs. stew meat
1/3 c. barley
1/3 c. dry lima beans
4 medium potatoes, peeled and left whole
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 lb. kishke (or Polish sausage) cut to 3 or 4 inch lengths
Paprika
Garlic Powder
Salt
Pepper

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees.

Place the stew meat evenly across the bottom of a casserole or medium roasting pan that is about 5″ deep. Dump the barley in a little pile on top of the meat on one end of the pan and dump the limas on the other end. Place the whole peeled potatoes in the middle on top of the stew meat.

Sprinkle the onion evenly across everything, add the sausage and season GENEROUSLY with paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Pour enough boiling water in the pan to just cover everything.

Bake for 12 hours. Yes, I said 12 hours.

Add boiling water as needed. It has been my experience that I only have to add water once more about halfway through the cooking time. The resulting dish comes out coated in a gravy (so to speak) but it should just nicely coat everything - not be soupy like a regular stew. Your sausage will look very brown but trust me, it’s not burned, it’s DELICIOUS.

I’m sorry I don’t have exact measurements for the spices. They weren’t provided to me either but that’s never been a problem. Just remember that you’re seasoning a pretty good amount of food. The next time I make it I’ll work out what the exact measurements should be and I’ll update this recipe with them and a couple of pictures.

Seriously, this stuff is good.