Cooking With Joy: Somewhat Sephardic Chulent

One aspect of this cookbook that I really like, are the intro’s that Jamie writes before all the recipes. Some of the things that she writes really pertain to me and how I am cooking my way through this book. In this recipe’s intro, Jamie writes “Who reads a cookbook in order, anyway?” Well I am very happy she wrote that. Originally when I started this project I thought that I would just go in order and cook every recipe. Well I haven’t really been doing that. Jamie was right- maybe nobody actually reads a cookbook in order! I am skipping around, and still building up the courage to cook the Family Fricasee from pg 171, not sure what about it scares me; I just haven’t brought myself to face it yet. Also, how many briskets or huge pieces of meat can my family eat in a row? (Don’t answer that)

Okay, now onto the actual recipe! This Chulent came out so delicious! It was such a pleasant change from our usual Chulent. The way we make our usual is with beer, bbq sauce and Worcestershire sauce, so this had a quite a different flavor. I was wary of using cinnamon and chicken stock, but we along with our guests really loved it! We paired it with an Israeli salad to cut the richness. The use of rice made it so creamy and the chickpeas added a really nice texture. The recipe calls for 4 veal marrow bones. I chose to use beef instead. The bones added SO much flavor but they did make the Chulent a little greasier than I would have liked, so next time I will only use 2.