Alise Malka's Authentic Deluxe Moroccan Chamin

Back when I had more access to videos, I came across Alise Malka who is an appealing older Moroccan lady (I think from Casablanca) now living in Haifa who makes excellent food.

She's seems shomer Shabbat at least and made sure to cover her hair in her challah-making video because she made the bracha of separating the challah.

Her video on how to make her Shabbat chamin (Moroccan cholent/Sabbath day stew) was impressive; I'd never seen a chamin like that.

My mother-in-law makes the standard Moroccan chamin with whole potatoes, whole unpeeled eggs, cut-up chicken or meat, garbanzo beans, and seasoned rice and/or wheat berries in separate cooking bags.

But Alise brings Moroccan chamin to a whole new level, which is why I call it Alise Malka's Deluxe Moroccan Chamin.

I think her Facebook page offers more exact measurements than her video, but I'm not sure because I've no access to Facebook. In her video, exact amounts were usually (but not always) stated and a couple of the ingredients left me in the dark.

For example, she adds a spice called "meruzhiya," but my husband had no idea what it was, nor could I figure it out using Google translate for French or Arabic (mostly because I don't know how to spell in French or Arabic). 

My mother-in-law knew what what it was, but hadn't used it since she left Moroccan around 50 years ago because she never knew they'd started selling it in Eretz Yisrael (and probably it's not widely available, else she'd have heard of it by now).   

Also, Alise uses a deep & wide oblong-shaped pot, which I don't have, so I needed to arrange the ingredients in the pot differently than she did.

If you use a crock-pot, that's probably closer to the size and shape Alise uses.

So I'll list the ingredients and how Alise made it, then offer you alternatives.

I haven't been able to make this more than once because my big kids prefer a heavy-duty Ashkenazi cholent. (Yeshivah boys are all the same, regardless of ethnicity.) But they liked this deluxe chamin well enough.​

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Important Tips & Notes before You Start

• This isn't a recipe for beginners. If you're not used to cooking, you could still try it, but the recipe isn't exact enough to guarantee a good result for an inexperienced cook.

• You need start planning this well in advance — at least 3 days (UNLESS you have all the ingredients in stock & use canned garbanzo beans/chickpeas & use raw meat without cooking it before).​

 

• Cooking bags are essential to this recipe, so make sure you have at least 3 cooking bags available.

 

• Remember to say, "L'khvod Shabbat!/In honor of Shabbos!" with a happy heart at some point during the actual preparation of the chamin.

IMPORTANT NUTMEG NOTE!: Fresh whole nutmeg is important in savory recipes. The ground nutmeg you buy in the supermarket in a container is usually not so fresh. It tastes fine in sweet recipes (like nutmeg cookies). But in savory recipes, the not-fresh ground nutmeg adds the taste of burnt rubber & ruins the whole darn thing.

Ask me how I know...

BUG-CHECKING NOTE!: All the grain/legume ingredients can be found bug-and-worm free, including the wheat berries (known as chitah – "wheat" in Hebrew) in vacuum-packed packaging, like the Kitov brand. Double-check to make sure it says CHECKED INSECT-FREE /Nivdak v'naki mitola'im v'charakim. (Some companies vacuum-pack for freshness, but you still need to check for critters, so make sure its status is stated clearly on the package.)

If you buy the unchecked not-necessarily-insect-free brand, you need to know how to check the garbanzo beans, rice, and wheat berries.

Dates also need to be checked before plopping them into the pot.

Onions sometimes need checking; it depends.

Spices sometimes need checking; it depends.

Din Online states that garlic cloves really need to be peeled and washed before use. Alise uses unpeeled cloves in her wheat berries, but you can use peeled garlic cloves or garlic powder.

If you don't know how, you can start at the link below, which covers whether you need to check this food and how to do so for the USA, UK, and Eretz Yisrael:
https://dinonline.org/Bedikat/chickpeas/

Hover your mouse-icon over the star under the country of your choice to see whether this food is presumably clean, rarely infested, sometimes infested, usually infested, or externally infested in your location.

(If you click on a star, it takes you to this page, which explains what each of those categories means.)

To look up other foods, simply click on the "Select Items" drop-down box in the upper center of the page, then click on the food of your interest.

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​To make the chamin Alise's way, you first need to:

• Start soaking the garbanzo beans around 3 days earlier, making sure to rinse them and change their water every day.
• Prepare the meat (calf's foot or whatever meat you use) the day before.

​Here we go:

Ingredients:

For the main chamin straight in the pot:

• Soaked dried garbanzo beans/chickpeas (called gargirei chumus in Hebrew) – maybe around a cup?
• 3 onions, sliced & fried
• 3 large pieces of meat (Alise used at least 2 calves' feet, plus another piece of meat), rinsed, cooked & frozen
• 5 peeled potatoes 
• 2 peeled sweet potatoes 
• 3 hard-boiled eggs (Egg shells are not so clean, plus the ink stamp, so make sure to boil & clean them before; you can boil them in clear vinegar for extra hygiene, plus vinegar prevents them from cracking or popping out of their shell during cooking.) 
• 2 tsp chicken soup powder
• 2 tsp turmeric (called karkum in Hebrew)
• 1 tsp black pepper
• ¼ cup some kind of oil tinted with paprika 
• 1 or 2 dates to add color.
• Fresh nutmeg (the actual whole nut)

(If you know what meruzhiyah is, it also goes straight into the pot. She also used some kind of syrup too, but I couldn't understand what that was either, so I left it out.)

For the beef "cake" in a cooking bag:

• 500 gm./1 lb. ground beef
• 2 tsp sugar
• Ground peanuts (¼ cup?)
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 Tbsp bread crumbs
• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1 egg
• A pinch of salt

Wheat berries (called simply chitah – "wheat" in Hebrew) in a cooking bag

• 1 cup wheat berries
• 1 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp chicken soup powder
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp salt
• 3-5 whole unpeeled garlic cloves (use peeled & washed or garlic powder)
• At least 2 cups water 

White rice in a cooking bag

• 1 cup rice
• 1 tsp chicken soup powder
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups water

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Directions

Chamin-Base Straight in the Pot

• ​Garbanzo beans – Make a layer of these beans over the bottom of the pot.
• Fried onions – Spread out on top of garbanzo beans as another layer.
• 3 large pieces of meat (also calf’s foot), rinsed, cooked & frozen – Place on top of onions near side of pot.
• 5 peeled potatoes – Place next to meat on beans & onions toward center.
• 2 peeled sweet potatoes – Place next to potatoes (or add to boiling water at the end if you wish to better keep their shape because they fall apart during cooking).
• 3 hard-boiled eggs – Place right in center.
• Add spices.
• Add 1 or 2 dates for color.
• Grate nutmeg over ingredients.
• Drop the entire nutmeg nut into the pot.​

What to Do Instead:

• Canned garbanzo beans can be used instead and will taste good, but won't have that "every bean individually cooked" taste to them.
• You can just skip the calves' feet altogether and use your favorite red meat. 
• I'm really not sure about the exact amount; just include whatever red meat in whatever amount you like.
• I used only 3 potatoes & 1 sweet potato, yet increased the eggs to 6. It turned out fine. 
• Just add oil & paprika separately, especially what's known in Israel as paprika b'shemen/paprika in oil.
• ​I cannot stand that much nutmeg in a savory dish, so I skipped dropping the entire nutmeg nut into the pot.
• You can used date syrup (silan) instead of whole dates, not sure how much; just however much looks good to you.
• If, like me, you're using a circle-shaped pot and cannot arrange the ingredients like Alise does, just improvise according to the size & shape of your pot.

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For the Beef "Cake" in a Cooking Bag

• Knead all the ingredients together.
• Place inside plastic cooking bag and don't knot it; just fold it up well so water won’t enter.
• When it's in the bag, you may need to pat and mold it a bit so it's like a square-ish or rectangular shape over which you can double-fold the bag.
• You place the bag folded side down somewhere on top of the onions. (Meaning that the potatoes and bags of grains will be on top of it, depending on how you've arranged things.)

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Wheat Berries in Cooking Bag

• ​Mix ingredients well together in a bowl.
• Pour into plastic cooking bag.
• Twist opening to close (but don't knot) & place at side of pot untied (but twisted & bent in a way so that it won't open and allow in more water; I close the twisted part over the edge of the pot with the lid).

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White Rice in Cooking Bag

• ​Mix ingredients well together in a bowl.
• Pour into plastic cooking bag.
• Twist opening to close (but don't knot) & place at side of pot untied (but twisted & bent in a way so that it won't open and allow in more water; I close the twisted part over the edge of the pot with the lid).

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• Pour boiling water over everything, more or less covering the contents.

• Place the bags of rice and wheat berries into the pot, twisting them in a way so that the bags stay closed without needing to knot them. (It's a pain in the neck to get the knot open for eating later.) I close the lid on them in a way that doesn't keep the lid open, if you get what I mean; hard to describe in writing.

You are now (finally!) ready to cook the whole shebang.
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• Bring to a boil, then let simmer for however long you like, then set your crock-pot to Shabbos-mode or place on the blech/platta/Sabbath hot plate, and feel pleased about your special deluxe chamin accomplishment.

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A close-up of traditional Sephardi chamin.