83: The Art of Cholent

hi this is Deborah Orlowski welcome to the raviolo ski show whether you watch contour anytime or wherever you watch or listen to your podcast it's so nice to have you around and along for this wonderful journey of ours I can't believe it's only been a year and a half and approaching our second Pesach program which we'll be starting the next episode and that's gonna go on throw in some extra shows keep people busy well they're cleaning for Pesach to help you get it through cuz sometimes when you listen to things it makes a little easier whistle while you work okay you get the idea anyway I remember when I was taking Lamaze with my wife and to this day I I still do the breathing better than she does but I mean one of the first exercises they gave us was to tighten your arm and hold it for one minute and you just stood there next time they said okay tighten your arm and they didn't tell us how long it was gonna be the first time they said okay for 60 seconds okay you can do this you're thirty ten seconds in try breathing while you're doing it you know is that and at the end they finished they said which one was easier I said of course the second one because you know what was gonna happen and you were distracted and you weren't focusing on the pain the same thing is definitely true about getting ready for pacer it's totally overwhelming if instead you make a plan it always makes it easier so you know what to expect and of course if you really listen to the very long ski show while you're cleaning it'll add so much you'll suddenly find yourself cleaning with a spring in your step which definitely helps for spring cleaning anyway my producer pointed out that I haven't done a recipe in a very long time and the answer is cuz I don't make those many things every week I tribe my wife gets every from publication that comes out you know the represents home journal she gets bad housekeeping everything she mama SH she subscribes to everything that that's out there you know New England Journal of losing whatever is out there she subscribes to it's reasonable so I always flip to the recipe section and I read through these recipes and I always said myself Burke shallow us any good why would you do six steps to do something that I can do in three four Ave us anyway that's my own personal thing I make a lot of wonderful soups and I look at there was soup recipes on why why for the love of God why say well I'm gonna give it a rest but I haven't give you a recipe so I realized I can give you my cholent recipe that is not my mother's chilling recipe I don't know my mother's tell the recipe is but did I give you chunk recipe and I have to tell you I don't really have a child recipe because it's determined on two factors one is how big you want it to be and the second one is what you have those are two very important issues Andy Rooney I know if anybody remembers Andy Rooney he used to do this bit on 60 minutes and I remember one time I saw a clip I was talking about recipes he says why do recipes always have to include at least one thing that they know you don't have you know you don't have and there's no chance of you ever finding it out it must have wander around like Asian markets I mean come on yeah so I'm a big believer in if it's not there you probably don't need it yeah and that's why yeah about six years ago that I bought celery so put celery salt because I had this coleslaw recipe and it says you have to add celery salt and I went with celery so that has been sitting in my cabinet for six years I fight with my wife and my cleaning woman every single week because they love to throw out Expo things and I say the only thing that you throw when it's expired are people otherwise you keep them you know people people think you know the cottage cheese I'm a day pass that if I eat it now it's gonna be spoiled it's already spoiled my gosh it's yogurt no oil just gotta get good you're just throwing out sour cream because it don't sour but there's a mistake you know medicines you know Susan pisses the date they throw with the medicines what do you think happen to it it doesn't explode yes that it so we will not they cannot guarantee it will be as potent to pass that date but unfortunately my words fall on deaf ears there's no time release thing that's built into these things that they know for sure yeah Seinfeld used to say what do they get expiration date like a milk milking the cow does he go Tuesday the third I don't know I don't know but anyway so that's that's what right so here's my standard and medium sized pot I use a crock-pot I put something down separating the container from the from the pot to raise it up a little bit for a lot of purposes I then put in probably but a cup and a half of water and then I put it in a plastic bag many people do not like to cook it in the plastic bag they feel it's unhealthy many people don't clean the Cholan pot that's why they don't care and is that I have a son he loves to cook he creates an absolute wreck in the kitchen and then he leaves when I was younger I still cared I used to teach my children well my older children don't first rule of cooking is clean up before you start clean up when you're done that's that's the first rule of cooking but okay like I say I find cleaning the tone pot to be more energy exerted than whatever is going to happen to me from the plastic in a plastic bag but anyway excuse me just a second I'm gonna do that again thank you this is actually you can see you inside there this is one of the drinks I grew up in tea with milk and sugar it's really quite English but when I was growing up we used to do that all the time we always said it took me years till I saw people drink tea without milk but David milk and sugar and we were we'd all sit around the table when we go like this my mother go could you stop it but I think it's an essential part to the drinking of this but you know I I used to get it I went to the doctor I used I tell them I get a pain in my eye whenever I drink tea and he told me take the spoon out of the cup anyway it's also good advice so uh so what do I do is I put it in the plastic bag and then I slice up a medium onion I don't know what a medium onion is not a shove it you know what this morning is you know what a large onion is so wouldn't it's not that so after I add the cup and a half of water to my the liner of the crock pot to the pot of the pot of the crock pot yeah then I put the plastic bag in I put it over the sides very important I do not turn on the crack pot until afterwards because otherwise the plastic neck tends to melt onto the side of the crack but you know how hard that is to get off if you do then you know already you feel my pain anyway so now I've got the plastic liner inside of the liner part of the crock pot everyone's still with me I've give you a recipe to make it inside of a very large pot like four simcha but part of the requirement is to burn the bottom layer and it's almost impossible to clean out and they don't make plastic bags that big anyway I slice up a medium onion what's a medium onion well you know if you have a small one you know this mornin is and you know what a large onion is what wouldn't that's not that yeah slice it up and put on the bottom of the pot you should slice it up along the hemisphere I Got News for you if you don't it's also fine and then you put in the meat what is the meat when I was in America we used flunkin the way God meant fit to be used come to shell no one will ever tell you what flunkin is every what you go to tells you something else and tells you that it's flunkin you can get the cubed up stew meat or chalant meat I'll never find that it makes a really great challenge personally if you get this little piece of meat that's called 1/8 olive I don't know what it is because here in Israel we don't give names to the cuts of meat when I was in America you know you'd have a silver tip a minute State roast you know rib roast here it just has numbers 1 2 3 4 5 6 this is an 8 olive so this is the entrance around the back of the cow evidently where you take that and it was it was built after if they finish the numbering and stick it in between anyway so if you put in one of those pieces like that it's perfect comes out soft comes out great Oh delightful anyway so see putting you meat and then you put in your potatoes how many potatoes it depends if my if some of my grandchildren are coming you have to put in between 15 and 35 potatoes because that's all they do is they eat potatoes you know then and the matter how many potatoes they take it's not enough and surprisingly they usually eat it so I can't tell you how many potatoes to put in there no depends on on your crowd but if you want to sell it number like you want just an average six potatoes how many six medium potatoes what's the median potato well this is a small one and this is a big one so anything between those now if you're daring and you have that that sense of adventure keep whole if you don't then cut them into pieces because when you cook them whole sometimes they don't all get cooked all the way and there's nothing worse than having a hard put a toe and a challenge and then you had the beans barley how much barley like this I'll do that again you have to shake it around like that how much is that I have no idea if I was actually writing a cookbook I would keep a little container on top of it and I would shake it around and then measure it I don't know half a cup half a cup of barley yeah some people like to put in more barley when you put it more barley it comes out much harder if you don't put it enough barley comes out watery yeah so you have to put it in barley enough anyway then you put in the beans now there's a guy who makes a challenge in Muncie at a gas station yeah to not be joke go in and get gas and get gas right that's that's the joke everybody's been telling this joke for 50 years I know I saw him once interviewed and he says where did this idea of red beans come from you never put in red means you only put in white please okay oh but the vinegar on them is you put in red and white beans here and there it's gel they actually sell what they call chalant mix and it's basically white beans and red beans mixed together because until that major development in the history of children's I used to buy a bag of white beans in a bag of red beans and I'd shake in some of each but now you don't have to do that anymore how many beans have come if you are one of those really organized people soak them the night before it's unbelievable I don't do that because at some point my wife says did you make the child and I'm like uh so it certainly wasn't thinking the night before to go and sell beans now if you live in America this is what I do when I visit America they have this thing called 15 bean mix for bean soup personally I'm not a fan of bean soup when I have a soup that has beans in it I usually eat around them on the end there's a whole little layer of beans at the bottom of my bowl you know so but there's something called soup bean mix 15 bean mix and I put in probably about a half a bag of that I sprinkle it around it has all kinds of different types of beans and it certainly makes for more interesting John I don't need salt the meat salty and what I do add is I add onion soup mix and I know we talked about this when I was talking about my onion soup how I don't believe in onion soup mix I don't believe in onion soup mix for onion but for other things it could be used could be used all right it has a lot of artificial things and it's not very healthy no no trust me if what kills you is the onion soup mix then you have lived a very very good life dearly beloved we are gathered here today to lay to rest Harry who died from onion soup mix trust me you won't go that way I guarantee it I'll sign off on it if you do I will go up to Shania and demand that they put you back down dye for onion soup mix unless you have an allergy if you have an allergy is nothing to do about it yeah people are peanut allergies okay so what you want for me you know okay that says it's an allergy I'm not to about allergy I'm doing about regular people little monosodium glutamate so what makes your head blow up so what it's good for you markiev is that dust you can't even buy MSG anymore I've got through like three stores I can't find out Miss Jane anybody finds out let me know I like to put it in other people's food excited anyway i yellow onion soup mix I add a little bit of garlic little black pepper and paprika how much paprika no again sprinkle around the top and that's my class of chopped and now we come to the issue that has that has challenged shall not make us for thousands of years and that is this is the standard challenge now you had water water just enough to cover yeah my wife makes one made kishka I don't have the recipe for it I'm sorry maybe we'll do a future podcast but you put your kiss go in the top fill up water just to cover we turn it on high until just before Shabbos then we turned it down to low and you can't go wrong can't go wrong if you do this in the pot to put everything it's much more comic a price well talk about showing up at another time maybe I'm so sick of talking about this already anyway so so now here comes the real issue because there is a dramatic variation some people believe this was actually introduced by the cara rights and that is to add honey and ketchup it's a different type of a john yeah how much ketchup well if you're using the awesome bottle of ketchup it's about three squirts but i mean goes up two squirts I don't mean like it does it like I keep thank you and if you don't hear the sounds you're doing it wrong yeah how much honey like this wait what stops dripping down the side over there and that's how much money you put in okay now these are not exactly scientific numbers but it's an amazing thing there are a lot of people complain because it shouldn't be sweet Sean should have that like chillin taste to it and but it's a variation people love it I don't know it's fine people love it there are those people who put in sweet potatoes there are people who put in Italian spices and bay leaves there are people who make it obviously with with Pesach coming up how creative can you be it's potatoes and it's and let's meet one year somebody said to me what you can't put in I'm speaking now of course to the Ashkenazi audience you can't put in beans you know so does they put in almonds I did this one and Hartford for the rest of paisa it was so basil like it to you I don't know why scientifically I don't know why of any of the scientists who I know watch this podcast to get all of this side of you hey as in a research on the effect of almonds and chalant on the digestive system please feel free to share that with us but III don't know why but it was a terrible idea unless you want to make a stew you can make us do yes do is different how do you make a stew well take garlic how many pieces of garlic I can't get it I got a get a big pot I means at least 10 quarts 12 quarts yeah I guess you could do it on a small level but I come from a family of six boys my mother never made anything small she didn't know how to make anything small so I would say pieces of garlic about six yeah you know if I cut him up to fine cut him in half cut him in thirds whatever yeah about three onions medium onions sliced a little oil start to brown the garlic add the onions and when that starts to get going now you add the meat cubed meat don't put in a whole piece for this cubed me and you keep browning it keep browning it took its kind of brown then you add pepper mmm don't go crazy but now that got a little look nose any after so cold circle of pepper and and garlic and paprika very important the paprika helps a lot paprika and then you keep going and it's gonna get very thick and then you add a picture of water to quartz you stir it up wait till comes to a boil and then you can add potatoes you could add carrots getting it squash yeah stuff like that presumably you could put in a bay leaf or bunch of bay leaves when you were browning the meat if you want to put a little dry red wine on it can never go wrong yeah and then eventually you bring the pod up and you bring it to a boil to a boil but there's people who try to do that with their challenge but it's very hard to do that letting it sit on the fire for now is it ours anyway my child almost always comes out successfully people always enjoy my challenge I haven't eaten it for years I can't I can't digest it with my tongue you know I could probably eat a potato from it but do you want to become flashing for the next six hours on a potato so there's something else over there that's really worth getting Flay shoot for you know because it's a six hour commitment commitment problems anyway so but that's that's for sure as far as that goes so so this is this is my Chong recipe I've never had an opportunity to share with you and as we get ready for the Pesach programme so you know a lot of these things are not hard and fast and if you're like I don't have any red beans it's okay I know if any white beans it's okay I don't have any barley I've been made to understand your concept stitute brown rice and I would you know what I'm not being anyway so what do I care you can do this I tried it once because I had somebody who couldn't have potatoes you can put in kohlrabi instead of potatoes and it has a very similar texture when you're cooking up that way in fact we once did slices of kohlrabi with like oil and spices and you roast it in the oven that comes out very close to potatoes really close to potatoes if you want so you have that as an option if you don't have meat you can substitute chicken but it's not a challenge anymore I don't know what you could I'm gonna chicken stew or something I don't know try it try it see how it goes what I have done sometimes in the past is I dacha add a lot of water so it becomes soupy and then I serve the soup this is another interesting option I've always wanted to try making a chicken soup in the crock pot and see how it comes out for Shabbos lunch but I've never done it basically I would put in the chicken and the vegetables and the water and just let it cook and see what happens sounds interesting I haven't tried it yet maybe I will anyway my point was why did he decide to talk about this this week the truth is because we're going into Pesach and you have to use up stuff for Pesach and that's why I say you know one of the things you me hear the expression you made a whole challenge out of it yeah the idea is that you can add stuff to the challenge is there's a certain flexibility it's not hard and fast there's room to maneuver because you have to start going through and that's the beginning process as we get ready for Pesach what do we need and what do we not need what can I dispose of yeah there are people who do not sell hard liquor and you can see these people staggering around a couple of weeks before parenthetically if you do not sell liquor don't feel that pressure you can give it to me I will make sure that it reaches the right audience but it's interesting when you start going through because there is a science to cooking that I don't know I know this because I had two people in my Shabbos table who actually went to cooking school and they said to me there's a science to cooking and if you understand the principles then you can create your own recipes I don't know what they are I try things from time to time but I'm always very nervous if I'm trying something that's not one of the recipes that you know I have alpi Messiah I have to follow the cookbook just exactly and that's why they used to be this wonderful restaurant in Lakewood called taste buds I think it was a wonderful restaurant I never went there in fact we bought their cookbook and we used to make things from it that we loved and when we made a trip to America I always make up a itinerary you know and I have you know whatever it is the Lakewood day the Muncie day the Manhattan day you know I plan out everything I make my my my a tenor Aries are just just so much fun the kids love them or they read through them what we're gonna do we're gonna go I put in little pictures and stuff it's so much creativity it's a pity I don't have a job but anyway but so we had I'm likely to go to taste buds and evidently closed down and I kind of threw off our a day because that's what we play my family we can make a half a day of a program out of going out to eat but any out I know I went to I went to America every place we went my kids had to order sushi and spicy fries I don't know we don't have them here in there so we do have sushi but wherever they go they have to eat sushi and they have these spicy fries to things that I cannot understand french fries are very good why would you have to put all these spices on them front yeah you're missing something you're missing something in your life yet so taste buds has these chocolate chip cookie recipe it's the only one that I know we use it from there but she puts in a quarter of a teaspoon of salt or something and people always complain that it tastes salty I said one chili because it's in the recipe what do you how am I supposed to leave it out it's written right there on the page I don't know if you know my I know if I ever gave across my mother veal with peppers never get my veal and peppers oh that's a great one anyway nobody in my family likes green peppers so I'm making veal and peppers without peppers but then it's not veal with peppers my kids say well you can make variations now with veal and peppers it's like leaving out the veal just have peppers I don't get it all right I'm too old I have a heart condition I don't wanna get excited but but that's it now is it time to be going through your cameras what do I have to use up how can I use it in a creative way make myself an interesting challenge I have a good challenge enjoy yourself make something special make something different yeah you there's this tendency as we go into Pesach that as we start to close down people don't end the beating I think problem crock-pot is very helpful because you can mix up stuff and stick it in there at the beginning of the day then yeah hard day of cleaning at the end just take out the crock-pot you know and you put in whatever you found around the house then throw it out and order takeout which is what we usually do but but the point is options options my friends creativity to be able to use up whatever is leftover as we get ready for Pesach cover the entire house in aluminum foil preferably the very heavy aluminum fro that has the sharp edges and also buy a lot of band-aids which I do every single year for reasons that are unclear to me but anyway cuz I don't go away for pacer because because I always say I only go with my old family and that's annoying rooms 20 tickets and everyone says well I shouldn't say everyone some people say I wish we could but we we can't afford that and some people say are you out of your mind and I appreciate that the third other people say oh we can work it out I'll get back to and I never hear from especially this year there are pay such programs closing down because of the coronavirus and you know understand with the impression that creates gonna send the crisis this is now gonna be a matzah shortage Erin err its Rob because we were counting on all these people leaving now they're all staying here okay take my matzo so you have to go and get your matzah right away matzah matzah man I wanna be my okay we talked about all the important things I want to talk about before Pesach and we're gonna set the Pesach program next episode hope to see you there and can I tell you have a beautiful month wonderful kodesh yeah the Sun Sameach yeah I always thought it was interesting that the Mosel of Nissan is the flare which is called Aires because Nissan made a car called the Aries coincidence yeah but anyway just something to reflect upon so there's some thoughts as we get ready to talk about something he's slightly more important although let me know if you can if you actually try my challenge recipe it might be exactly the same as your chunk recipe because it's not a lot of creativity involved over there you have these people were like first Brown the meat and then this then that guys take everything in the pot turn it on it's junk for crying out loud I get carried away yeah okay this week if you want more information about this show like why why love of God why you can go to memory allows you to come you can add comments see my upcoming events schedule which is very light contact me directly you could still join the live stream which you are going on all the time DAF Yomi and Vasilisa Shoreham and they're just the bestest and but only if you have a camera because I have a rule that I have to be able to see you you have to be able to see me cuz it's a share yeah I always say with this podcast is a show in that issue that's a share in that a show sure involves interaction if you like the sponsor episode go to row a ski that comes live sponsor that's it for this week I'm Deborah Lansky and this has been the rabbi Olaf ski show it's the rabbi Orlovsky show Turin simcha ready to go the rabbi Orlovsky show knowledge and wisdom will help you burn lots of fun in every episode of we don't have to ride it's the rabbi Orlovsky show a rabbi relax keep calm go ruff anytime you tube or it's rabbi Orlovsky show Turin [Music] our labs Kisho away till it's time so we meet again grab our lousy shot it's the raviolo ski show it's the rabbi Orlovsky [Music]