Basic Cholent 1/2 cup dry kidney beans 1/2 cup dry navy beans 1/2 cup dry other beans (lima, black, etc.) 3 potatoes 1 lb stew meat WITH BONES!!! 1/2 cup barley 1 large onion 3-4 cloves garlic salt pepper Hungarian Paprika The night before you are going to make the Cholent, place the dry beans in a large bowl and cover with water. cover the bowl and place aside. In the morning, drain the water. About one hour before Shabbat, cut up the potatoes to a size you would like. Chop the onion very coarsely and slice the garlic. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Here we will take one ingredient from the Hungarians. Also season the meat with the paprika. Please use Hungarian paprika, not the kind that you might find in the brand named bottles. Most supermarkets today sell Hungarian Paprika. Regular paprika does not give too much taste, but Hungarian does. Season to taste. Put the meat into your crock pot or soup pot. Add the rest of the ingredients and cover with water. Here is the tricky part how much water to use. If you are a Shabbat observer, you cannot add more after Shabbat has begun. If you use a crock pot, add water almost to the top. If you are using a soup pot, cover the food and add about 1-2 inches more of water. Put the crock pot or stove on high heat until the water starts to boil and then lower the flame. Just before Shabbat begins taste the liquid, and add more salt, pepper or paprika to taste. Turn the heat down to low on the crock pot, or lower the flame on the stove and cover with a blech. Put soup pot on blech. Enjoy your Cholent Shabbat afternoon! Variations! You can add almost anything you would like to Cholent. Any vegetable will work fine, especially the harder root vegetables. You could also add any spices you like, cumin, curry or turmeric come to mind. You could totally change the beans around. Add dry chick peas, or lessen the bean content. If you lessen the bean content, just add more of something else to soak up the water. Try adding wheat berries instead or with the barley. Add tomato paste or fresh tomatoes. If you are going to add fresh tomatoes, you might want to peal them. Cut a cross in the top of the tomato and then drop in boiling water for 10 seconds. The drop in cold water. You should now be able to peal the tomato. Take out the seeds before adding to the pot. You could change your meat to chicken. Some families would never make meat Cholent. All the way back in Eastern Europe they only made chicken Cholent. For a more modern slant, try using lamb and orzo in your Cholent. Here are two more wonderful additions to Cholent. Both are very traditional eastern Europe additions. Add some hard boiled eggs to the pot with the shells on, slightly cracked. When you eat the Cholent, the eggs will have a wonderful brown color and with the slight cracks, the flavors of the Cholent will penetrate the eggs! Lastly make a Cholent kugal. Take some challah or day old french bread and soak in water. Drain when thoroughly wet. Saute some peppers, onions and garlic in a pan. Add some paprika, cumin and turmeric and add the bread. Turn off the fire and tear off large piece of aluminum foil. Put the mixture in the foil and roll up. Put this in the top of the pot when you cook the Cholent. Or saute the onions peppers and spices. Add 1/8 cup of oil and 1 1/2 cups of flour. Mix well and roll this up. You can put this in the foil or just place the roll on the top of the Cholent in the pot. Enjoy!