Brooklyn, NY – Winner Crowned At Masbia Cholent Challenge

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    Masbia Cholent challege (Jewish stew cooking competition) at Gourmet Glatt Market, Borough Park Brooklyn NY photo by Stefano Giovannini Brooklyn, NY – It was cholent, cholent and more cholent at the grand finale of the Great Cholent Challenge which culminated this past Thursday night at Gourmet Glatt in Borough Park with an evening of cholent tasting, fabulous food from Gourmet Glatt, live music and most importantly, a financial boost for Masbia Soup Kitchens.

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    “The whole store smelled like cholent when you came in on Thursday,” Alexander Rapaport, executive director of Masbia, told VIN News. “All those spices and all that simmering for 24 hours. You walked in and the windows were fogging up with cholent-flavored steam.”

    All 16 contenders assembled their cholents the night before in Gourmet Glatt, as previously reported on VIN News, with all ingredients donated by Gourmet Glatt.

    A panel of VIP judges including Jesse Blonder of the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts, Elan Kornblum of Great Kosher Restaurants Magazine, Chef Ruben Diaz of Masbia, Shlomo Klein of Joy of Kosher Magazine and Moishy Moskowitz, front end manager at Gourmet Glatt, picked their favorites with the help of votes from members of the public who had previously donated to Masbia for the Cholent Challenge.

    Judging a variety of cholents ranging from the heimish to gourmet was no easy task according to Kornblum.

    “I look for a cholent that has a great soft consistency and, of course, lots of flavor with beans, barley, meat, potatoes and perhaps a few interesting extra like kishka, sausages and pastrami,” said Kornblum.

    Top honors went to 27 year old Adam Gindea of New Jersey, a rebbe at Golda Och Academy of West Orange, whose team Ribbenous Round 1 brought in over $1,000 in donations.
    Adam Gindea of New Jersey.(Shimon Gifter/VINnews.com)
    Gindea, who has been making cholent since his college days, had been tipped off about the competition by his mother in law and used canned red kidney beans, flanken, short ribs, kishka, onion soup mix, brown sugar and hot sauce in his award winning cholent.

    The Cholent Challenge was Gindea’s first introduction to Masbia.

    “It is nice to see organizations like this out there and it was a privilege to be able to raise money for Masbia,” said Gindea.

    Cholent Challenge emcee Avi Levy will be featuring Gindea’s cholent on a future episode of Avi’s Kosher Kitchen on YouTube, although Gindea noted that his recipe does evolve on a weekly basis and his cholent is rarely the same twice.

    “I happen to take my cholent very seriously and I rarely skimp on the meat,” said Gindea. “We don’t have so many options of cuts of meat in West Orange and I was a little overwhelmed seeing all the different choices. It was really very generous of Gourmet Glatt to do what they did.”

    Coming in second was 36 year old Riverdale resident Avi White of Gemstone Catering, a subdivision of Got Cholent? Inc. and pit boss at The Wandering Que.
    Avi White of Gemstone Catering. (Shimon Gifter/VINnews.com)
    Clad in a sweatshirt bearing the words “Got Cholent?”, White, whose company makes 16 different types of cholent, touted Dr. Pepper as having the perfect flavor profile for cholent. White, who was also the top fundraiser in the Great Cholent Challenge with over $1,300 in donations to Team Got Cholent, fielded two different cholents in the competition.

    White described the Cholent Challenge as the perfect New York story.

    “Cholent is all about combining different ingredients under pressure until they homogenize,” said White. “Cholents have been one of the only things that Jews from all over the world had had in common in the culinary sense and that room very much represented that same notion. Yidden from all walks of life filled that room but it was the cholent, and tangentially a yearning for the Shabbos, that represent something we all shared in common.”

    Coming in third was Chananya Glick who called a stick of margarine his secret ingredient in a hybrid cholent that mixed his own recipe with those of his brother and some friends from shul.
    Chananya Glick. photo by Stefano Giovannini
    The 29 year old Glick who lives in Borough Park and sells supplies for diabetics, used barley, baby lima beans, seared marrow bones, caramelized sugar and finely chopped Spanish onions in his cholent, seasoning the entire pot with black pepper, salt, onion powder, garlic powder, ketchup, ground red hot peppers and a touch of cumin.

    While Gindea’s cholent may have been the most popular pot of the night, the true winner of the event was Masbia, which raised $15,000 through the Great Cholent Challenge. While that amount exceeded the campaign’s original goal, it is less than what Masbia spends weekly to feed the people who walk through its doors.

    “Our regular seasonal campaigns are not enough and we need to find new ways to raise money,” said Rapaport. “Every few dollars feeds another person.”

    Rapaport hopes to come up with other additional creative and food-based events to raise much needed funds.

    “This was great because a lot of tzedaka functions are very scripted and formal and here everyone was happy and smiling and enjoying the moment,” said Rapaport. “Even those who didn’t win were so into it. We had that festive mood that is the real spirit of ahavas yisroel.”

    “Masbia is a great organization and I was proud to be associated with the event,” added Kornblum. “We’re big supporters of them and I look forward to working with them for many years. Masbia truly is a restaurant without a register and we love restaurants.”



    A panel of VIP judges including Jesse Blonder of the Center for Kosher Culinary Arts, Elan Kornblum of Great Kosher Restaurants Magazine, Chef Ruben Diaz of Masbia, Shlomo Klein of Joy of Kosher Magazine and Moishy Moskowitz, front end manager at Gourmet Glatt.

    Masbia Cholent challege (Jewish stew cooking competition) at Gourmet Glatt Market, Borough Park Brooklyn NY photo by Stefano Giovannini

    The judges at Masbia Cholent challege (Jewish stew cooking competition) at Gourmet Glatt Market, Borough Park Brooklyn NY (photo by Stefano Giovannini)

    Masbia Cholent challege (Jewish stew cooking competition) at Gourmet Glatt Market, Borough Park Brooklyn NY photo by Stefano Giovannini

    Masbia Cholent challege (Jewish stew cooking competition) at Gourmet Glatt Market, Borough Park Brooklyn NY photo by Stefano Giovannini


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    8 Comments
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    9 years ago

    What a kiddish hashem, so many people coming out and playing foul with their stomach, all for a Tzedaka cause!

    Aron8483
    Aron8483
    9 years ago

    The results wasn’t right and Sam Schwartz should’ve been the top winner
    We should re-appeal this decision and come out with the real truth

    ComeOn
    ComeOn
    9 years ago

    Onion Soup Mix??
    Seriously, that should be an immediate disqualifier. Same goes for onion powder.
    Had I known, I may have entered. I use real ingredients only, like ONIONS!

    9 years ago

    The perfect venue in the עיר התורה Boro park, it’s quite sad the level we have reached where shopping for groceries has become such a holy ritual. Where the store has to look like a museum, with the latest in style and decor, and buying nuts and wine has to be in a store that the foolish owners spent hundreds of thousand of dollars to design and build, I guess gourmet glatt was just the right place for this cholent contest,

    shmielglassman
    shmielglassman
    9 years ago

    was’nt this followed by tikun chatzos thats what the ad said / do you need manhatten window lights to shine on your red peppers ? we are going in the wrong direction obesity on the RISE the glamor around food