Crock pots

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Posted at 12:02PM, 06 February 2008 by Jenni Muir - Food writer

It's not a groovy thing to say, but I love my Crock Pot and at this time of year use it a couple of times a week for big batches of slowly simmered dishes. We only bought it because the oven broke down a few months before the kitchen was to be renovated and it seemed foolish to bother getting it fixed. Now, however, I wouldn't be without one.

A large part of the appeal is the idea that you could just bung a load of ingredients in there (carefully selected and measured of course), switch it on and let it go. Several hours later, voila! Dinner. Or indeed breakfast.

However there are those who argue that this isn't really possible. In one book I have on slow-cookers, the author seems to have gone out of her way to make the recipes as fiddly as possible, expecting readers to do much of the cooking on the stovetop in a series of pans before the ingredients get anywhere near the crock pot. There are even dishes where the ingredients are cooked in the slow-cooker for several hours before putting them in the slow-cooker with other ingredients the next day and cooking them for several hours AGAIN. As Janet Street-Porter would say, life's too short.

But it's true you can't throw any old thing in a crock pot and expect it to be delicious eight hours later. Having tried some of the more complicated recipes I've decided I have my personal cut-off point when it comes to pre-cooking. I'll brown but I won't braise. In general, the only pre-boiling I'll do is in the kettle. Maybe this means my roster of crock pot recipes will be limited, but I'll happily keep looking for the kinds of recipes that suit me, rather than making life in the kitchen more complicated. If you've got any good ones, let me know.

At home our favourites include a 'seven-hour' leg of lamb, which I have adapted from a recipe by Molly Stevens. I add lots of different root vegetables to her basic mixture of tomatoes, onions, carrots and turnips, and the leftovers are fabulous mixed with olives, mint, parsley and parmesan to make pasta sauce. The only advance cooking needed is to brown the lamb under the grill. Occasionally at the end of cooking I reduce the broth to make a thicker sauce, but mostly I leave it as is.

Today I'm trying a recipe for Mexican black beans in the crock pot for the first time. The crock pot was actually devised in the USA as a bean cooker and really is perfect for them though I fear this one will need a lot longer than originally envisaged. I regularly make a sort-of Boston baked beans with a smoked gammon joint buried in the middle of it, letting it simmer all night then serving it for breakfast. The original recipe said to bring it all to the boil on the stovetop first but there's really no need. Slow-cookers are also great for making stocks and polenta.

I doubt we'll ever see a celebrity chef producing a hit series about crock pot cooking (...now there's a job for Heston Blumenthal...) but that doesn't mean they should be overlooked by home cooks. Slow-cookers use very little power - great for the environment - and make the best of inexpensive cuts of meats - something a lot of us find helpful.

Comments

Churchpolly

6 February 2008, 7:24PM
Churchpolly

I remember my grandmother having a hay box - in the morning she would, on top of the stove, bring a stew up to the boil for a few minutes and then place it in the box, pile the straw on top and all around and put a lid on the box which was then weighted down with a large stone. Many hours later at the end of the working day she would remove the pot from the hay box and open up a delicious piping hot and fully cooked stew. The only gas that had been used was the initial browning and bringing to the boil - how eco friendly is that? Of course she only did it that way because with a large family every penny counted but it might be worth thinking about as an environmentally friendly method - perhaps it could be mass produced using up to date materials?

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Elspethkempe

7 February 2008, 6:12AM
Elspethkempe

A few years ago you could buy 'hay boxes' here in South Africa. They consisted of a large cardboard box and four big, squashy cushions filled with inflated polystyrene beads (rather like the bean bags of the 60/70's if you're old enough to remember them!). You heated up your pot of casserole, nestled it into the bottom cushion and packed the other cushions around it. You closed the box, went off to work and hey presto, dinner was ready when you got home. Worked like a dream until the dog got into the box, ate the casserole and took the cushions for a gallop round the garden!

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lapleau

10 February 2008, 3:52PM
lapleau

As some one who runs a b&b in france i wouldnt be without my slow cooker, but alsa my faith freind has no departed after 10 years of service and now have to scour for another one that appeals to me. Looks like a shopping trip to the uk or a trip to the big french city to is called for to search for my trusty buddy. Ham hocks and gammons cooked in ginger beer or elvises coca cola have been a success, espically finnish off over hick chips on the fire.

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kipperelli

11 February 2008, 8:32PM
kipperelli

I love crock pots too. I tend to cook a lot of mince dishes in mine, I know mince really doesn't need it but my kids have textures issues and mince cooked in it gets the thumbs up with them.

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lucyboo

12 February 2008, 4:40AM
lucyboo

i bought a slow cooker (as they're called her in australia) and i love it. i am not very good at cooking meat -- it's either underdone and raw, or over done and tough as an old boot -- but my slow cooker allows me to cook melt-in-the-mouth beef, pork and lamb casseroles and curries and other one-pot meals -- perfect every time. i am a huge convert! on my last week off work i made four, and stashed them immediately in the freezer, ready for when i'm time-pressed. i love my slow cooker, and wish recipe websites and magazines would have regular slow cooker columns!

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igglepiggle

12 February 2008, 10:02PM
igglepiggle

The best cooking gadget invented, perfect when you`ve been at work all day, I love using mine for jams,chutneys and rice pudding is just amazing..a bacon joint cooked in the pot is perfect for christmas or those summer salads...

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Helen

19 February 2008, 12:30PM
Helen

I have a slow cooker that is sadly underused. I have used it but the dishes were rather tastelass and thin and the family were not impressed. Please could someone reccomend a good recipe book so that I can get my cooker out again and make proper us of it? Has anyone used theirs in a caravan?

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junnja

19 February 2008, 4:19PM
junnja

I just love my slow-cooker. I did a piece of Brisket(notoriously a tough cut) in it the other week. I could barely lift it out as it was so tender. Curries, stews, soups, chilli, Mac and Cheese, all delicious. There are plenty of websites with thousands of slow-cooker recipes out there. I picked up my 6.5 litre slow-cooker for under £20. Amazingly cheap. Get one now!! They're on their way back.

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Britannia Cookers

4 August 2008, 10:28PM
Britannia Cookers

It's the only appliance i actually love! It's ok to be left when you go out and your house smells wonderful. I bought one for my sister and she uses it all the time too... http://www.internetkitchenappliances.co.uk/

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