Hints On Cooking With The Slow Cooker; Tips And Tricks - Silvercrest SSC 200 A1 Bedienungsanleitung

RP100155 slow cooker LB6 Seite 8 Donnerstag, 19. Juni 2014 12:05 12

7. Hints on cooking with the slow cooker

Slow cooking or "gentle cooking" is one of
the healthiest ways of cooking food.
It is actually cooked below boiling point, but
for a number of hours. This means that
nothing can burn or become overcooked.
The food doesn't boil vigorously, it
"simmers" slowly, so that flavours and spices
have time to develop to their full effect.
7.1 Suitable food for the slow cooker
This slow cooker is particularly suitable for
meat, especially tougher cuts. The long
cooking time makes then as soft as butter.
Pulses such as beans, peas or lentils also
cook very well in the slow cooker.
Other hard vegetables such as potatoes,
carrots, kohlrabi, etc., are also well suited to
slow cooking.
In general we can say that slow cooking is
an excellent way of preparing stews, soups
and braised dishes.
7.2 Unsuitable food for the slow cooker
The slow cooker is not suitable for searing or
browning. If any ingredients need to be
seared or browned, a separate pan should
be used.
Fish, pasta and dairy products are not
suitable for slow cooking, because they
coagulate or disintegrate. Such delicate
ingredients are added towards the end of
the cooking period.
Red beans contain a particularly high level
of a hazardous protein substance that is
destroyed only by vigorous boiling. They
should therefore always be precooked for
ten minutes at a fast boil before further
cooking in the slow cooker.
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Frozen foods should be thawed before
cooking. Temperatures in the slow cooker
are too low to be certain that frozen food
will have been completely cooked.

7.3 Tips and tricks

• Pulses should always be soaked in water
overnight. This greatly reduces the
necessary cooking time. The necessary
cooking time for dry pulses depends very
much on exactly how dry they are, and is
therefore difficult to estimate accurately.
• Always throw away the water in which
they were soaked, never use it for further
cooking.
• If you plan to mix beans with other
vegetables such as carrots or potatoes, the
beans should be pre-cooked and then left
to stand overnight so that the cooking
times will be more nearly the same.
• Beans should always be cooked at
"HIGH" in order to destroy their
unwanted proteins and ensure that
cooking does not take too long.
• Beans and hard vegetables such as
carrots or potatoes should always be
completely covered with water while
cooking.
• Cut hard vegetables into regular, not too
large, pieces and always cook them at
the bottom of the cooking pot, because
vegetables take rather longer to cook
than meat.
• You can prepare the ingredients the day
before, place them in the cooking pot
with the lid on and leave it in the
refrigerator overnight, and then simply
put it into the slow cooker for cooking.
• To function properly the cooking pot
should always be at least half full.