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Wooow slow cooking looks cool!
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
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Basically you whack it all in the crockpot/slow cooker and leave it all day. When you get back it's all cooked like a stew.
Basically you whack it all in the crockpot/slow cooker and leave it all day. When you get back it's all cooked like a stew.
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We've got a Rayburn too and yeah they are very good for slow cooking.
Used to have an Aga but it was ancient (been in the house for years and years, well before we moved it) and it fucked up eventually.
:yes:
We used to have a solid fuel Aga too, until the company that was meantg to service it fucked up, left the flue blocked, and almost killed us with carbon monoxide. Put everyone in hospital for the night anyway.
Aga and Rayburns are good but they're horrendously expensive to buy and to fix if something goes wrong .
And the mini ones are awsome, take what you want anywhere.
However obviously when i move to my palatial country mansion and have an Aga (this is of course only in my dreams) I will be whipping up loads of yummy slow cooked food.
On the other hand I do have an ethical dilema about all the extra energy being used to cook things for hours and hours. I'm even considering not eating stuff like lasagne any more (even thought its my favourite favourite thing) as it uses more energy than just cooking ordinary pasta.
Cooking for a long time at a lower temperature is far more energy-efficient than cooking for a short period of time at a higher temperature. Once an oven is up to temperature it pretty much holds it without using much energy- the energy is expended in getting the oven up to temperature.
Slow cooking is better for the environment, and it certainly tastes better.
I love stew, When it's slow cooked!
But eating salad is even better, or something you only use the hob for - if your using gas you have almost instantaneous heat and you would cook pasta for say only 15mins rather than the hours and hours something is in the oven for.
Food is just making me feel guiltier and guiltier these days, there are so many bad things about it aside from the obvious calories but how much energy we use to produce food, food miles, how many chemicals are involved and how the animals are treated - maybe I should become a fruitatarian arrghghghghg. Or just stop thinking about how bad it all is - i'm going to start getting a guilt complex about owning a fridge soon i'm sure!
But then you have the food miles attached to eating any product that's out of season (like lettuce and tomatoes).
We've been doing slow cooking for thousands of years, I wouldn't worry about the energy. Slow-cooking locally-sourced meat and vegetables is by far and away the healthiest and most environmentally sound way of living.
You should read Leo Hickman's article in the Guardian.
Unless you have an oven like mine which heats the kitchen about as much as the inside.
Slow cooked chilli is the best, it pisses on any of the crap that's normally called chilli.
Which'd be why we have like 3 of the things cluttering up my house.
What equipment do you need for it?
Rice cookers are excellent. We use ours 3 or 4 times a week.
No, its nothing to do with pressure, its just, as the name suggests, cooking things really slowly on a low heat. You can do the same job really by having a big pan of chilli or stew on a really low simmer for ages.
Just saw this and thought of you... although it might be too late now!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kenwood-MP131-Indian-Pack-Cooker/dp/B000G3G1FY/sr=1-8/qid=1170764275/ref=sr_1_8/203-8128517-7460706?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen
Do slow cookers go on the hob or are they seperate? Are they good for meat or vegetarian dishes too?
Also what happens with stirring? If I cook something on the hob for a long time like spag bol or chilli I always stir it every 15 mins or so even when the heat is turned right down... do things in the slow cooker not get burnt as they sit in the same place for the whole time?
Not sure about smell? Do you mean they smell of food and you'd rather they didn't or that there is a particular smell?