I wanna see if I can make a seafood soup in my Crock Pot. I don’t have a recipe, but since when do you need one for a Crock Pot? On the other hand, if any of you have any seafood recipes, I’d love to hear them (for slow cookers only, though, please).
But my main question is, would you put the seafood in at the beginning or near the end? I was thinking mainly of pre-cooked crab meat, but I was also toying with the idea of scallops.
I have a crockpot cookbook that has a couple of recipes that include seafood. Things like shrimp and scallops are always put in at the end and only cooked until just done. Only the vegetables are slow cooked.
Thanks, that what I kind of figured. Add it about an hour before it’s done, maybe?
A couple of suggestions: First, my instinct would be to put the seafood in near the end. Otherwise, I would suspect that it would get rubbery.
As a general crock-pot tip, remember to put all of the ingredients in hot. If you go the slow heating up route by putting things in cold, you make a really nice environment for germs.
An hour would be too long, I think. I believe the recipes said more like 20 minutes, or until they were done by your usual standard for seafood. They will be going into boiling liquid and will cook just as quickly as they would on the stovetop, pretty much.
Seafood, IME, doesn’t do too well in the crockpot. Shellfish, in particular, suffer overcooking poorly. Save the seafood for conventional cooking.
Kaspar, I don’t have a crockpot cookbook handy, but shrimp, for example, cooks best when exposed to cooking heat for approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Especially in a damp heat. About the only things that I’d imagine would have seafood in them for long periods of time are chowders, stews, or jambalaya.