Fourteen hours in the oven

You shall feast today on cholent!

The German poet Heinrich Heine called tshlunt (or schalet; he used the German):

Food of heaven, which on Sinai

God Himself instructed Moses

In the secret of preparing

With praise as grand as this, I was foolish to think my first attempt to make it would be recipe-ready. Still, I had a plan. Nick Bramham, Head Chef at the wonderful Quality Wines, had requested a recipe for tshlunt, and I was going to provide it. 

When cooking a new dish, I usually employ the Felicity Cloake method. Read a few different recipes, extract the best bits, and then land on something that both makes logical sense and feels right. In this case, it was mostly Claudia Roden, with a touch of Joan Nathan, and a few conversations with friends and family with plentiful tshlunt-cooking experience. I used: 1kg short rib from Stella’s butcher shop; 2 large onions, sliced; 250g butter beans, soaked for a few hours; 175g pearl barley; 1kg desiree potatoes, peeled and quartered; Maldon sea salt and Sarawak white pepper. I’d been given some of the wonderfully fragrant spice by Anna Sulan Masing the first time we met, and as a central flavour in Grandma Angie’s cooking, this seemed an appropriate time to use it. 

I set the oven to 110 degrees celsius, and then sauteed the onions on the stove until bronze, seasoned and browned the beef, and then layered the French oven: onions, potatoes, meat pieces; thrice over. I added water to cover, brought it to the boil, removed the scum, and then placed a sheet of baking paper over the rim, with the lid on top to seal its fate. 

I paused before placing it in the oven. I still remember the dread I felt on a failed attempt to make a tagine in a tagine pot in Morocco, which left my friends relentlessly chewing on chunks of lamb and gnawing on undercooked carrots. For years, I never trusted the recipe when making a ragu and would frantically disturb the cooking process at intervals to check the meat is breaking down. I’d never cooked something this low or this long, and was anxious about leaving it to the gods. But in the end I surrendered to an inexplicable sense of trust. 

It was in at 11:30pm, and it would come out at 1:30pm, in time for the guests to arrive.

***

Sabbath/shabbat stews exist in almost every Jewish edah (ethnic sub-group). Due to the prohibition against 'kindling a fire,' which is considered a form of work, food for the Saturday would have to be prepared overnight, which meant long, slow cooking that would begin just before sunset, officially marking the time when shabbat starts. 

Tshlunt is the Ashkenazi version, originating in Eastern Europe. Hamin is a Sephardi version often made with chicken, eggs, or chickpeas. It originated with the Jews of Spain and was consequently eaten all over the Ottoman world. There is also dfina, a Moroccan version that often uses lamb, and t'beet, an Iraqi version which is constructed of tomatoey, cardamomy rice and a whole chicken rather than pieces of meat and beans. T'beet literally means ‘overnight’ in Iraqi Arabic, and was more common than hamin in Baghdad. 

I’d made t'beet before, and given it long cooking time at a low heat over several hours of the day.  This tshlunt was the first time I’d made a shabbat stew properly, allowing the alchemy of overnight cooking to brew. 

***

Waking up to something cooked overnight was a new experience for me.  Aromas filled the room – bovine, starchy, allium-sweet – all intertwining into a distinct whole; into the olfactory essence and synergy of tshlunt. I felt a quiet thrill and excitement. 

A few hours later, I lifted off the heavy lid, and then pulled off the sheet of baking paper. The mist permeated like a steam train, and underneath my eyes feasted on a beautiful, tawny symphony – things that were once very different  shades now mixing in the same palette, brought closer by the power of time, and the sanctity of waiting. 

As I mixed it together at the table to eager, excited guests, I was flooded with memories. Praises were sang, hearts and bellies were filled (it isn’t hard on tshlunt), as it was all devoured with a side of tzimmes – orange, cinnamon, and butter (I’d thought hard about whether to go for margarine to keep it feeling kosher but my gut wouldn’t allow it) and a fittingly peppery bottle of Winery Sixteen 600, Sonoma Grenache 2016, brought by my friends from their honeymoon in California.

There was an issue with seasoning, admittedly. I rectified it post-cooking, but I want to get the proportions right next time.  Frankly, it made me revere Dovid’s Delis even more, and communal cooking in general. How on earth do you get the seasoning right in a cauldron big enough to feed hundreds? 

In the end I have no recipe, and lots of questions: Should I brine the meat? Would the use of barley miso to marinate the ribs be too inauthentic? Do I use beef stock or will the beefiness overshadow the other elements? Is white pepper the right choice of seasoning? 

Of course, there can and should be varieties, but my focus now is on deepening the intensity of flavour without losing the balance of the core ingredients: meat, potato, onion, pepper, beans, and grain (I now know one variation includes buckwheat instead of barley). And then to come up with vegetarian and gluten free versions, with the task doubly hard: maintain balance and the essence of the dish.

But what did I learn on cooking my first tshlunt? As an old Yiddish proverb puts it, di tsayt iz tayerer fun gelt (time is more precious than money). Like nose-to-tail cooking and cucina povera, time is a fundamental ingredient in the Ashkenazi kitchen.  I’ve always been drawn to slow cooking, and have made too many ragus to recall. It’s now time to do the same for tshlunt.