Gourmet Slow Cooker Cuisine - is it possible?

I just made a recipe from The Gourmet Slow Cooker: Dublin Coddle. On average, it was OK. The bangers were fantastic - the slow cooking made them very tender, including the casing, which was nice. The potatoes and carrots, however, tasted like most things I’ve tried from the slow cooker: bland and vaguely metallic/sour. I know potatoes are bland, and this recipe has no spices other than salt and pepper, but I know if I simply boiled potatoes in a pot and put salt & pepper on them, they would have tasted much better. These no longer tasted of potato.

I recall my attempts at pot roast in the slow cooker have also had that metallic/sour undertone. How is that possible when I’m cooking in a thick ceramic crock? I know the heating element surrounding it is metal, but it doesn’t come near the food!

I do think this cookbook is on to something with browning meat and sauteing onions and spice before putting stuff into the cooker. The Maillard Reaction is a good thing!

Anyone have success with using a slow cooker to make tasty food? I know lots of people seem satisfied with stringy overcooked chicken breasts bathed in cream of celery soup, but that kind of thing is not for me. However, I’d love to have the ease of knowing dinner is taken care of early in the day, and I like not having to have the oven on, given the weather lately.

This is a good cassoulet recipe from the NY Times. I should make it more often.

SLOW-COOKER CASSOULET
serves 6

1 chicken fryer, cut up or about 4 lbs whatever kind of chicken you want to use
flour to dredge chicken in
1/2 lb bacon, cut in pieces
1 large onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3 heaping Tbsp parsley, chopped
1/2 tsp pepper
2 small bay leaves (or 1 large)
1 tsp dry thyme
2-15 oz cans Cannellini beans (white kidney beans), drained
10 oz package frozen spinach
1 lb Polish sausage or smoked sausage, sliced 1/2" thick
1/4 c dry white wine or dry Vermouth or whatever

Cook bacon in a pan on the stove. Remove from pan and set aside. Dredge chicken and cook in the bacon drippings with the onions and garlic. Drain drippings.

Place chicken, onions, garlic and bacon in the slow cooker and sprinkle evenly with parsley, bay leaves, thyme and pepper. Spoon beans and sausage on top. Pour on the wine, cover and cook on LOW 5 hours. Put spinach over the top and cook another hour. Serve with small new potatoes or mashed potatoes.

Note: can also cook in a big pot on top of the stove or in the oven. Simmer for 2 hours on top of the stove, bake at 350 degrees for 1-1/2 hours in the oven.

Fry up a bunch of onions, garlic and chicken thighs with some carrots and celery. Bung the whole thing into the slow cooker with some chopped rutabaga and apple cider to cover.

Go to work.

Come home.

Toss some frozen peas or green beans in a bowl and put a heaping portion of the chicken/root veg on top. When the green veggies have warmed, eat.

Yummy! Is it gourmet? Tough to say. Add some celeriac if it makes you feel better. . .

I thought slow cookers were mostly for chilis, soups, and stews. I don’t really think of those things as gourmet but they’re still tasty.

Most things that you can braise, you can do in a crockpot. Browning meat first on the stove makes a huge difference in the flavor. I don’t know, but the metallic taste might come from cooking it overly long or hot.

This is a Cooking Light recipe for Zinfandel-Braised Leg of Lamb.

*   1  (2 1/2-pound) boneless leg of lamb
* 1  teaspoon  kosher salt, divided
* 1  teaspoon  freshly ground black pepper, divided
* 1  tablespoon  all-purpose flour
* 2  teaspoons  olive oil
* 1  tablespoon  juniper berries, crushed
* 1  teaspoon  whole allspice, crushed
* 6  garlic cloves, sliced
* 1  cup  zinfandel or other light red wine
* 1  teaspoon  dried basil
* 2  bay leaves
* 6  cups  hot cooked egg noodles (about 4 3/4 cups uncooked pasta)

Preparation

  1. Unroll lamb; trim fat. Sprinkle evenly with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Reroll lamb; secure at 1-inch intervals with twine. Sprinkle evenly with flour. Heat oil in a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add lamb to pan; cook 6 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Place lamb in an electric slow cooker. Add juniper berries, allspice, and garlic to pan; cook over medium heat 2 minutes or until garlic is lightly browned. Add wine to pan, scraping pan to loosen browned bits; cook until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 3 minutes). Scrape wine mixture into cooker; add basil and bay leaves. Cover and cook on LOW 8 hours or until lamb is tender.

  2. Remove lamb from cooker; keep warm. Strain cooking liquid through a sieve into a bowl; discard solids. Add remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/2 teaspoon pepper to cooking liquid; stir. Remove twine from lamb, and discard. Break lamb into chunks with 2 forks. Serve lamb and cooking liquid over egg noodles.

Now that you mention it, I suspect my cooker is hotter than standard. The recipe I just did called for 5-6 hours on low, but when I checked after a couple hours, the potatoes were already done. And when I put it on “Warm” it continued to bubble fairly strongly.

These recipes sound great. I will definitely try them - maybe with an upgraded cooker!

The best slow cooker pot roast recipe I’ve seen uses GOLDEN cream of mushroom soup, not regular, as well as a dash of Worcestershire sauce. Put those in the pot on top of the roast, along with a little water or wine (if you’re feeling crazy). Add in whatever veggies you want. I also throw in my favorite seasonings.

Very yummy. This also is good for pork chops. I like food with a lot of flavor, so this is great. I don’t know if it’s gourmet, though. . . :slight_smile:

If you don’t want mushy potatoes, it’s generally recommended to add them anywhere from an hour to 2 hours before the end of cooking. This is the same technique for carrots. It depends on how you cut your potatoes. Bigger chunks, and they can last quite a bit longer without getting overcooked.

I always prefer to use the lovely new potatoes[baby potatoes] in the slow cooker, and the pearl onions that are about the same size, and whole baby carrots. I tend to add them about an hour and a half or so before the meat is done. I make a beef stew that uses beef chunks that are large, about the same size as the baby potatoes and pearl onions, and a good barberone or burgundy as the cooking liquid - sort of like a beef bourguinon flavor profile [without the mushrooms]. I also wrap the herbs in gauze so I can pull them out, bouquet garni style. I do like whole garlic cloves instead of minced dried garlic that frequently gets used in recipes, dried garlic always seems to have a funny metallic taste to it.

Thinly sliced (across the grain) elephant garlic works beautifully in the slow cooker. It just sort of melts away and becomes a thickener in the broth. More flavor, more fibre, win/win.

If you didn’t know about it, adding Kitchen Bouquet to the crockpot helps with the flavor if you didn’t get around to browning the meat first. It’s like bottled browning, both in color and ingredients (caramelized vegetables).