Great – thanks. That’s what I suspected (about the potatoes, anyway).
Mushrooms also do poorly if cooked the entire time, so all the recipes I’ve seen direct you to add them in the last 30 minutes or so. I think I’ve done a pot roast with potatoes in there for the duration, and I haven’t noticed any problems. However, I did cut them into large pieces (quarters, maybe?), so that might be why.
Carrots are fine, as BiblioCat notes, but they do get soft. If you prefer your carrots to have more bite to them, I’d add them later in the cooking.
Onions and celery get very limp. However, as these are more flavoring agents than anything in pot roast, that’s not a bad thing. Pearl onions also get soft, but tend to hold up better than quartered onions.
I’ve heard that other root veggies (parsnips, turnips, and such) do pretty well with long cooking times, especially if cut into large chunks, but I don’t have any experience with those.
I have this Crockery Cookery cookbook, and I think it gives good recommendations on which veggies will do well (it’s been a while since I read through it, so I can’t remember as clearly as I’d like). I’m sure any number of slow cooker cookbooks would do the same.
Turnips hold up very well in a crockpot, as do parsnips.
Depends on how soft you can handle carrots. Personally, I’d steam or saute them with broth from the crockpot. If you can do that an hour before everything’s done, that’d be perfect. And if you have time to do that, I’d split your onion batch in half - 1/2 goes in the crockpot with everything else, half goes with the carrots at the end of the cycle.
Okay, the current plan is to do the meat and broth about eight hours out; pearl onions four hours out; carrots, potatoes, mushrooms one hour out.
Does that sound about right?
Cut your potatoes smallish. Personally, I don’t mind semi-mushy carrots, so they tend to go in about 4 hours out in my stews.
Would carrots and potatoes (which I prefer in medium chunks – say, three or four bites’ worth) be better at two hours out? I don’t want the carrots crunchy, but I prefer them with some remaining resistance when you bite in.
Broomstick, I have a 4 quart one and I cook for just 2 people. The problem with a big one (or the averaged sized ones you see at Bed Bath and Beyond) is that you have to fill the crock at least 1/2 way or the food will tend to burn. I’m getting a 2.5 quart model for my birthday at the end of the month so that I don’t have to make “big recipes”. Also, I’m seconding the “you can put the crock anywhere”. I betcha I have less counter space than you - it’s a triangle jutting from the wall, no bigger than 2 1/2 feet at the widest part. Get one with a removable ceramic liner (all the modern ones have them) so that you can fill it in the kitchen and take it to where you’re gonna plug it in.
Reynolds liners are expensive at over $1 apiece, but I found some on Amazon that are crazy cheap (and well reviewed): $11 for 25 of them, as it says in the comments.
I would do it that way. In from the beginning will turn them to mush, but I’d give them at least a couple of hours to cook well and flavor the gravy.
Great, thanks. This is tomorrow’s project – I’ll report back on my results then.
twicks, when I do a roast or chicken, I usually slice a yellow onion kind of thick (half-inch slices) and lay them in the bottom of the crock first, and then set the meat on the sliced onion. It’s sort of an onion meat-rack, I guess. They do get all mushy, but they’re good that way, at least IMO. I save some onion to put on top of the meat, too.
I don’t do whole chickens, because I have a round crockpot, and while they do fit, they usually end up so damn tender, the stupid thing falls apart when I try to take it out. I have better luck with cut-up chicken pieces.
Yes, you want cuts like chuck, brisket, and short ribs: meats that are cooked to beyond the well-done stage so their collagen can break down into gelatin and render a nice, soft, juicy piece of meat. More expensive steak cuts do not have this connective tissue and thus end up ruined by crockpot cooking. Also, I’ve had very inconsistent results with round roasts, so I tend to avoid them and use them cut very thinly for stir-fries or I roast them to medium-rare temps in the oven, rather than slow-cooking them for a long time.
For pork, shoulder or Boston butt (part of the shoulder) is the easiest to slow cook. Plenty of connective tissue, more than enough fat, hard to mess up. Country style ribs work well, too. A lot of people like doing pork chops or tenderloin in the crockpot. I don’t and think this cut is too lean and tender for slow-cooking. Every slow-cooked pork chop I’ve ever had tastes like dry, stringy meat to me, no matter how much sauce is on it. But a lot of people seem to dig it, so give it a shot and see if it works to your tastes. Pork tenderloin can be relatively cheap, too, but not as cheap as Boston butt (which I’ve seen as little as 89 cents a pound here in Chicago last week, but usually averages around $1.29-$1.49.
If you do a chicken (cut up or whole) in a crockpot, does the skin color, or does it come out flabby and pale?
It’s a slow, wet cooking method, so there’s no opportunity for the skin to develop color. So, yes, crockpot chicken has flabby, gelatinous skin. You can try browning it beforehand (which I do with a lot of slow cooked meats, anyway), but the skin will still end up flabby. You need a dry, high heat source to color and crisp the skin.
Yes, it does get pale and kind of nasty-looking. I used to cut it off and give it to the dog (a little bit each day over the course of a few days), but I don’t have a dog any more. Now I end up throwing it away.
Those ones from Amazon are fantastic. They really are superior to the Reynolds ones.
I needed some and you reminded me! They also have $19.99 for 50 of them. That one has buy 3 get 1 free, too!
Well, the stew was good but not great. Seriously overcompensated on the timing of the potatoes, which needed more than two hours (or needed to be in smaller pieces; these were little puppies, so I didn’t cut them at all – probably a mistake). Thickened the gravy with some flour at the end, which was a good idea. The meat, after almost 10 hours on low, tasted kind of stringy and uninteresting.
More experimenting to come.
Awesome, repped by a doper 
I was worried, since they didn’t have many positive reviews. Now I’m sure.
What kind of meat did you use? I find that short ribs are best in terms of flavor and texture, followed by chuck. If you use a lot of liquid, a lot of the flavor will seep into the liquid–it’s just the nature of the cooking method. You basically get a very beefy broth with meat that is subdued in flavor because it’s been released into the liquid. Hence the necessity of the gravy to bring that flavor back.
If you like lamb and cabbage, here’s a very simple Norweigian dish that I’m making right now (in a Dutch oven) called fårikål:
1.5 lb lamb shoulder/blade/shank/neck, bone-in preferably
1 head cabbage (you might not need the whole thing)
2 or so teaspoons whole black peppercorns
2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons flour
Chop lamb into pieces. Cut cabbage in half. Cut halves into thick strips, cutting from center outward (basically making skinny wedges). Put a 1/3 of lamb on the bottom of the crockpot, leaving space in between the pieces. Layer with enough cabbage to cover. Sprinkle half your peppercorns, salt, and flour over. Add another layer of lamb. Add layer of cabbage. Sprinkle rest of peppercorns, salt, and flour. One more layer of lamb, top with cabbage. Maybe add a little more salt for good luck. Pour over about 1/2-2/3 cup water. Cook until tender. Serve with boiled new potatoes.
It’s very comfort-foody and not exactly heavily spiced, perhaps, but the flavor of the lamb cuts through the cabbage and stands out. If you like German or Eastern European cuisine, this should be up your alley, but I can understand if cabbage & lamb is not your preference. Personally, I think it’s great.
For something a little more heavily spiced, there’s always Hungarian goulash (pörkölt):
2 lb boneless short ribs or chuck cut into 1 inch pieces
1 lb onion, chopped
1 Italian frying pepper or banana pepper, chopped finely
2 heaping teaspoons Hungarian sweet paprika (Pride of Szeged is commonly available)
1/2-1 teaspoon ground caraway (optional)
1 tablespoon tomato paste (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
This takes a little prep before you put it in the slow cooker. Fry the onions and pepper in about two tablespoons or so of oil or shortening of your choice (lard is traditional). When translucent, take onions off the heat, add paprika and caraway, and stir for a minute. Dump this into the slow cooker. If you feel like browning your beef, brown it, if not that’s fine.
Add tomato paste, if using, to mixture in crockpot. Add beef. Stir it around nice and good. Add 1/2 cup water. Add salt and pepper to taste. Slow cook until done (about 6-8 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high.) Adjust for seasoning. Serve over egg noodles. Pörkölt is traditionally never thickened with flour. If it’s a runny, it’s usual to take the cover off and cook off some of the liquid or add a bit of tomato paste to thicken.
If you want to turn this into what Hungarians call goulash (gulyás), increase the paprika to a heaping tablespoon, instead of adding 1/2 cup water, add enough beef broth or water to cover the meat well. Add one parsnip and one carrot cut into discs. If you want, you can add a third root vegetable like celeriac (celery root) or kohlrabi–about equal in volume to the carrot. Add 2-3 potatoes, cut into one-inch cubes, about 2 hours before serving. This is a soup and should look like this when finished. In either recipe, you can also put in a clove of garlic, if you wish.
Don’t remember exactly (and have taken out the trash already). It was chunks of beef of the sort I’d just call “stew meat” and was labeled as “perfect for slow cookers.”