A lush Middle Eastern stew transports our guest to a bubbling pot in Jerusalem, where mum is cooking up a Sabbath treat

Chamin, or cholent, as the Ashkenazi call it, is a really slow-cooked stew. It’s a Shabbat meal; in Judaism, you’re not allowed to cook from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday – so in this instance the pot is brought to the boil, before sunset, then left to sit on a electric hotplate at a very low temperature for 12-18 hours. It sits all night long, thick and heavy, and by Saturday morning you are losing your mind because it smells so good, but you can’t have any until it’s time. I could eat it every second of my life: it’s the one thing I can eat until I explode.

Whenever I visit my parents in Jerusalem, it’s the dish I want my mum to make. Mum is always in the kitchen – her specialities are Friday-night fish with whole garlic that explodes in your mouth, or Jewish chopped salad with loads of paprika and lemon, or a Moroccan carrot salad, or kube (semolina dumplings filled with meat, then cooked in a really sour, herby green soup). And there are always 5-6 salads in the fridge that you can make into a meal with just a hunk of challah bread. But of all of these, chamin is my favourite.

It is served with great ceremony, the big pot in the centre of the table, its contents spooned on to plates – the heavy bits first, followed by the beans and intensely spiced broth with cumin and paprika. So homely and fragrant. I usually have 3-4 platefuls. Each area, even each home, has its own recipe: it’s a bit like a Sunday roast in that way, every household and every kind of Jewish culture – from Russia to Yemen – has a version. I’ve tasted many different ones: the Kurdish version that my dad’s mother used to make had macaroni and chicken in it, but my favourite is my mother Sima’s Moroccan chamin – it’s more soupy, which keeps it lighter, with beans, potatoes, eggs, meatballs made with rice, some bones, and some beef cheeks. She often adds a little bag filled with wheat and a date or two for colour and depth. The egg and potato along with the meat and beans make it a whole meal, although you do often have mezze with it. When you finish all the meaty parts, you have leftovers for the day after – the sabich – a pitta bread sandwich with deep fried aubergine and tahini. But when I’m eating it, I tend not to interrupt my stomach with anything else. I want as much space for it as I can muster.

I love the history of this dish. Every community used to have a baker, who’d put the pots in his ovens while they were still hot, and leave them there until they had cooled down completely. Nowadays, hotplates have replaced those communal ovens, but I think the dish still brings people together.

I sometimes make it at home, but I never change the recipe. It’s the one thing I never tweak. And no matter how I try, I can never make it as good as my mother’s.

Chamin

Serves 4-5
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1kg beef cheeks, or oxtail, cut into chunks
225g white beans (soaked in 1 litre of water overnight)
225g dried chickpeas (soaked in 1 litre of water overnight)
4 litres water
3 pieces bone marrow
4 large potatoes, peeled
4 whole eggs (to be hard boiled)
2 dates (optional)
2 tbsp cumin
1 tsp sweet paprika
Salt and black pepper, to taste

For the meatballs
About 90g arborio rice or similar (soaked in 1 litre of water for two hours)
2 tbsp semolina or flour
500g minced beef (15-20% fat)
1 tsp cumin
Salt and black pepper

1 For the kofte, drain the rice and then mix with the minced beef along with 1 tsp cumin, the semolina or flour and then season generously with salt and pepper. Knead the mixture well before rolling into meatballs. It should make roughly 8 balls.

2 Heat the oil in a large, deep pot over a medium heat. Once this is hot, add your beef cheeks to the pan and gently seal them on both sides. Season well with salt and pepper.

3 Drain the beans and chickpeas, and add them to the pot with the beef. Add the water and deglaze the pot by scraping the bottom, which will release the flavours.

4 Bring the pot to the boil, and add the rest of the ingredients including the meatballs. Season with salt and pepper.

5 Turn the heat down as low as you can so the pot is at a gentle simmer, cover with a lid and cook for 10 hours.

• Tomer Amedi is head chef at the Palomar in London. The Palomar Cookbook is published by Mitchell Beazley and is out now. Tomer will be hosting an exclusive dinner inspired by A Taste of Home on Thursday 29 September at The Geffrye Museum of the Home, London, and a special Guardian Masterclass on Monday 10 October. Go to membership.theguardian.com for more details.
  

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