I have never cooked cholent, nor have I ever seen it in the process of being cooked, nor has my husband seen it being cooked. What we do know, is that we love cholent when we eat it at people's houses and we want to start eating at home on Shabbos afternoons. The caveat is, my husband has taken the cholent on himself because I work all Friday and he is home (which is very kind of him)... but he can barely cook a potato. He needs a recipe REALLY bad. Someone please help us. And I don't want some recipe with "just throw some meat in and some potatos and water" no no no. I want a recipe, something a person who has limited cooking experience could understand.

I do it every week with good results.

For two people, this makes more than enough:

1 potato, quartered
About 4 strips of "cholent meat" (of course quantity depends on how the meat is cut, but use common sense)
About 1/2-3/4 cup of cholent bean mix
About 1/3 cup pearled barley
A "cholent bone" or two, depending on the size and how fatty the meat itself is
A few pinches of salt
Enough paprika to cover the surface of the pot content
Optional: onion powder, garlic powder, etc. etc.

I recommend using a crock pot bag insert. First put some water in the pot, then the bag. Place contents in crock pot. I put barley and beans at bottom, then potatoes and cholent bones, then meat, then seasonings. Add water until all contents are fully covered. Put the crockpot on high (starting Friday morning) and then set it to low before Shabbos starts. Should come out fine.

My husband does this:
Takes a washing cup and fills it halfway with water to put in the crockpot.
Then he puts a crockpot insert on top.
He puts in:
3 potatoes, 1/3 cup beans (pre-soaked to make sure there are no worms, as we had last week), 1/3 cup barley, 1/3-1/2 lb. of cholent meat (with bone) -- if you can't find, you can use stew meat, cheek meat, flanken, whatever. He slices some frozen kishka and puts that in too. Covers the whole thing with water, and lets cook on low from 9 AM - 1 PM.
He then turns it off for a short while so it isn't steaming and puts the following seasonings in:
salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, paprika, and cumin.
Puts it back on low, and cooks it on that till we eat it at around 11:30 AM Shabbos day.
We have found BTW, not making it in a huge crockpot helps it not dry out as much. We are now using a 4 lb. crockpot. We always have leftovers with this recipe, but that's because I don't do my part in eating what he considers a portion

http://www.hashkafah.com/index.php?showtopic=34816&hl=

For a 4 qt. crock-pot:
(no beans)

Fill the crock-pot about an inch with water, then put in a crock-pot liner.
Dice and saute a medium onion in a small pan, when halfway done, add a few cloves of sliced garlic. (or skip this step and add onion and garlic powder to spices), put in pot.
Add meat- a few chunks of flanken, stew meat, pepper steak, etc. (I don't eat chulent meat, someone else could probably tell you which tastes best.)
Cut one potato and one sweet potato into chunks, add to pot. (I usually peel the sweet potato, but not the white one, it doesn't make a difference though.)
Add about 2/3 cup barley.
Sprinkle paprika over contents in a thin layer. Add salt (1 tsp?).
Cover with water.
Bonus: Take potato kugel, wrap in foil, set on top of chulent.
Cover pot, cook on low from Friday afternoon until Shabbos lunch.
If you want to have chulent Friday night also, turn the crock-pot on Friday morning.
If you're nervous about how much water too put in, err on the side of too little, especially since you can add hot water to the chulent on Shabbos under certain conditions.

Play around with different ingredients to figure out what you like- it probably won't turn out too bad.

in bottom of pot, put in a big squirt (2 Tbsp) of Ketchup, a splash (2 tsp) of soy sauce, 2 spoonfulls crushed garlic,
(a spoonful of onion soup mix is optional, as is a splash of hot sauce and a big squirt of honey)
and about 2/3 cup barley.
Mix this on the bottom of the pot.

add in potatoes, cut into large chunks (3 chunks for a reg. sized russet potato).
For 2 people, we only use 2 potatoes, and barely even finish that. Add a can of beans here, but we don't add beans.
On top of that, put in the meat (one or two pieces of flanken is best, just put it in frozen if you need.
We find flanken too fatty, so we use stew meat and wrap it in an aluminum foil pouch so it doesn't dry out from the long cooking.)

Pour in one bottle/can of beer, and fill the rest to cover the ingredients with water.

On my crockpot, it works best if you cook it on high (4 hrs) and let it simmer at "keep warm" the rest of the day. All crockpots are different, and most people cook it on low.

Extras: Wrap a piece of kishke in foil and put that on top of the meat. Same with potato kugel.

this is so funny, because I also always use the washing cup for this, and I thought I was a werido.

me too!

I personally think it's gross since ours is silver plated and not polished nearly enough. To compromise, he only uses it for the outside, and not the inside of the bag

If I would make the cholent, I would take out the beans, lower the potatoes, put in sweet potatoes, more barley, and no kishka. Alas, I don't make it.

saute the onions and meat first (and crushed garlic, too)!!!!!!!!!!!

although it might be too much for the beginning for your husband, but it's still an idea for later on, when he i smore comfortable with cholent cooking

These are all excellent suggestions and recipes! Now I have a much better idea of what to pick up for him from the store to make this. He'll especially like the bit about putting beer in. I have 3 questions though: how long do you soak the beans for (I've never in my life used beans that weren't from a can )? How essential is the crockpot liner/what does it give to the cholent besides easy clean up? How much kishka is used? This seems to be an ingredient in almost every book, though I've never used it. Do you just drop in a slice or two? Is it like hotdogs (please, no hotdog cholent... blech) since teh ingredients in it sound the same or does it melt away?

you can start without kishka first (past shabbos was the very first one i put the kishka in cause i was in the mood for it - ti's flour, carrots, lots of oil, spices, onions all rolled into a roll and you put the whole roll into the cholent, covered in foil; or can put half of it, or a few slices)

i always soak beans overnight - the easiest, especially in winter (not for cholent, but fr the bean salad). the packages have soaking instructions as well

Penina:
I never soak the beans and they come out just fine.
I also never saute meat, onions, or garlic. For the people that do, can you really tell the difference?
Buy a kishka, unwrap the paper, and wrap the whole roll in foil. Set it on top of the cholent when you've finished assembly, put the lid on and turn it on.
We find the hardest thing is the water level, and I agree with whoever said, err on the side of less, you can always add more hot water from the urn.

Easy clean up is a big deal when you're talking about encrusted cholent.

I use canned beans and never use a crockpot liner. . . just let the pot soak a few minutes and it's easy to clean.

Regarding cleaning-- you can also fill the empty, dirty crock pot with water, and leave it on overnight. The hot water will strip away the dried up guck, and it will just need a simple scrub with soap the next morning.

Sorry but a crock pot condom is still easier - just pull out the bag and you're done. Of course there's that small chance that the bag can leak but it's a very rare occurence. I don't know about you but to me it seems like no contest.

Agreed. But not everyone always has them handy.

You don't have to eat cholent, you know. What are you eating on Friday night? Can't you serve that by day too ?

Are you Jewish? I mean, seriously.

I know you don't HAVE to, but I WANT to. In general, we eat Friday dinner foods for Shabbos but we're really looking for cholent. We also really are partial for meat cholent and the shuls by us only serve paerve.