Ayala’s Wholesome Hamin

Hamin is a Jewish staple in many homes on Shabbat (Sabbath)—a hot, filling dish that cooks overnight and into the morning so families have a warm meal ready to eat after Saturday morning prayers. Cholent is the Ashkenazi version of Hamin and involves mixing all the ingredients together into a stew. The Sephardic Hamin is a deconstructed stew—all the ingredients cook together but are served separately on the plate. This recipe is passed down from dear friends, Ayala and Yosef. Yosef’s family, originally from Morocco, used to make this dish on Friday afternoons and put it in their neighbor’s ovens the next day so they didn’t have to light a fire and break the Shabbat. Today, the same end is easily reached with some forethought and a slow cooker.

Ingredients

1 ½ c. dry white beans

6 eggs, thoroughly washed and hard boiled

6 potatoes, peeled

2–3 onions, cut in halves

2 cloves garlic, chopped

2 lb. (1 kg.) beef roast

1 c. buckwheat

¼ c. olive oil

1 ½ tsp. salt

2 tbsp. sweet paprika

3 tbsp. cumin

1 roasting bag

Directions

Soak white beans in water overnight. Thoroughly rinse in the morning and place in slow cooker.
Put meat in the center of the cooker. Sprinkle with half of the chopped garlic. Arrange potatoes and onions around the outside of the meat.
Place eggs (with shells still on) in the slow cooker.
Rinse buckwheat and put in roasting bag with remaining chopped garlic.
Dissolve salt, paprika and cumin in one cup of hot water. Pour half over the meat and vegetables and the rest into the bag of buckwheat. Tie the bag closed and poke a few holes in it to ventilate. Place the bag on top of the meat.
Add water to the cooker until the meat is mostly covered. Add more as necessary during cooking process to make sure the meat stays tender.
Pour olive oil over everything and cook on high for approximately 8 hours. Peel eggs, return to cooker and keep on low until you are ready to serve.

 Serves 6