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My understanding was that the core should reach 88 degrees celcius for it to be done.
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Jul 10, 2016 11:47
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Virtue posted:
Not much danger in overcooking if you're doing low and slow and aren't going >10-12 hours. Honestly 8h is usually enough. Basically, just cook it until you can stick a fork in it and it starts coming apart just by pushing the fork around. If you have to cut it with a knife to break the muscle apart it's not cooked enough yet. If it comes apart with a fork its cooked enough and going past that won't get you anything except the meat becoming drier and stringier eventually. I typically do 6h on low and then check and see, usually it ends up being in the ~7h range but letting it go for 8 isn't going to be a problem for overcooking typically. 12h could be overkill but depends on the size of pot / size of shoulder etc.
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Jul 10, 2016 14:37
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Update: I seared a 2 lb pork shoulder for 3 minutes each side using the sauté setting and slow cooked it with an onion and a cup of ginger ale for 8 hours. Was still tough as hell. I finished it with 20 minutes on high pressure and it came out alright though. Maybe the instant pot low slow cook setting is just really low?
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Jul 11, 2016 19:29
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Pretty sure the lack of liquid is what did it. 1 cup of liquid is not enough to braise a 2 pound pork butt.
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Jul 11, 2016 20:00
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But Not Tonight posted:Pretty sure the lack of liquid is what did it. 1 cup of liquid is not enough to braise a 2 pound pork butt. That's surprising. The recipe warned against "drowning" the pork although it did call for a 5 lb instead of the 2 I used. At the end of the 8 hours there wasn't much liquid but it was practically drowning after I pressure cooked it. I'll try it with more liquid next time and see how it turns out.
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Jul 12, 2016 02:14
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I don't think it was the liquid. You can cook pork shoulders with no liquid and get tender results. Can you find out the temp of that setting? I don't know about "instant pots."
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Jul 12, 2016 04:45
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i like nice words
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Anne Whateley posted:I don't think it was the liquid. You can cook pork shoulders with no liquid and get tender results. Can you find out the temp of that setting? I don't know about "instant pots." Didn't measure it myself but google says: Less mode: 88-94°C/190~201°F (Low in a common slow cooker) And just for fun the other two settings: Normal mode: 90~96°C/194~205°F (Medium in a common slow cooker) More mode: 93~99°C/199~210°F (High in a common slow cooker)
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Jul 12, 2016 06:29
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Slow cookers are also great for cooking dried beans, which taste better and are cheaper than canned. Just add beans, water to ~5 cm above level of beans, anything you want to flavour the beans (bay leaves, onion, etc.) and salt. Cook on low until tender - I usually do it overnight. Remember if you're cooking kidney beans they must be boiled at a rolling boil for at least ten minutes before going in the slow cooker (change the water after the boil) or you'll get sick. Then you can use them however you'd use canned beans, and freeze any leftovers in their liquid for later use. I like to make apple butter in the fall - just fill the slow cooker full of peeled, sliced apples, plus a little liquid and a little sugar, and cook down until you have delicious apple butter. I've also made chicken in milk in the slow cooker and it's pretty good, although not as good as the version in the oven because the liquid doesn't reduce as much. For me, the main advantage of a slow cooker is that I work on call, which means I often get called out in the middle of, say, waiting for supper to finish in the oven. With a slow cooker, that's not a problem - it's on a timer and will switch to the "keep warm" setting for 12 hours afterwards, which is usually enough time for me to deliver a baby and come back. And then I come home to beef stew or chicken soup or chili or whatever and life is pretty nice. Brown all your meats and veggies before they go in the pot, then use your braising liquid to deglaze the browning pan before you add it. Reduce the amount of liquid you add by about half when adapting a recipe because it won't evaporate and concentrate the flavour on its own. Choose cuts of meat that benefit from braising - tough cuts full of connective tissue are best. If there's lots of fat on the meat, add even less liquid because the meat will cook in its own liquified fat.
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Jul 13, 2016 03:47
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I tried to make pot au feu recently and the vegetables (minus the carrots) came out awful, but the oxtail and short ribs were gear after like 3-4hr slow cooking. I'm gonna try and see if I can use my slow cooker for short ribs and oxtail too, dunno what to cook them in though - is beef/chicken broth enough, or should I be including something else? (It certainly won't be healthy, though. Hmm...) Pollyanna fucked around with this message at 19:01 on Aug 28, 2016 |
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Aug 28, 2016 18:59
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Pollyanna posted:I tried to make pot au feu recently and the vegetables (minus the carrots) came out awful, but the oxtail and short ribs were gear after like 3-4hr slow cooking. I'm gonna try and see if I can use my slow cooker for short ribs and oxtail too, dunno what to cook them in though - is beef/chicken broth enough, or should I be including something else? Red wine is always good. Took a recipe that was beef shanks braised in wine in the oven for several hours, and did it as an overnight slow cooker recipe instead, it made a lovely lunch. Add plenty of whole peeled garlic cloves if that's your jam.
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Aug 28, 2016 22:09
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Anyone got a good crock pot chicken recipe i could use for tacos? Preferably one with real spices of some kind. Ive never really done shredded chicken before but I've got a lot of thighsm
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Sep 7, 2016 17:48
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Like, crock pots just really aren't the best thing for chicken. And I say that as a general crock pot defender. If you have a lot of thighs just put them in a big pyrex and bake them with some seasoning.
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Sep 7, 2016 18:15
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Well thats part of it, i dont really know how to season chicken that well to be honest. Blame years of middle american cooking from my mom, most of my stuff is self taught.
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Sep 7, 2016 18:26
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salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic, fresh chillies and lime juice should be a basic enough starter if its just thighs will get you a slighty spicy tomato sauce you can reduce to mean it doesn't leak everywhere i'd add the lime juice directly on the tacos
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Sep 7, 2016 19:08
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Jose posted:salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic, fresh chillies and lime juice should be a basic enough starter if its just thighs will get you a slighty spicy tomato sauce you can reduce to mean it doesn't leak everywhere Seconded.
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Sep 7, 2016 19:30
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Jose posted:salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic, fresh chillies and lime juice should be a basic enough starter if its just thighs will get you a slighty spicy tomato sauce you can reduce to mean it doesn't leak everywhere Or just dry, but with a dusting of salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, and lemon on the thighs. Bake at 400 until done.
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Sep 7, 2016 20:01
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Jose posted:salt, pepper, paprika, cayenne, tinned tomatoes, onion, garlic, fresh chillies and lime juice should be a basic enough starter if its just thighs will get you a slighty spicy tomato sauce you can reduce to mean it doesn't leak everywhere Need cumin
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Sep 7, 2016 21:16
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Mr. Wiggles posted:Or just dry, but with a dusting of salt, pepper, thyme, garlic, and lemon on the thighs. Bake at 400 until done. i like to do this with some waxy potatoes cut in half in the roasting tray and adding white wine and lemon juice once the skin has crisped but thats not really for tacos
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Sep 7, 2016 22:26
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Captainsalami posted:Well thats part of it, i dont really know how to season chicken that well to be honest. Blame years of middle american cooking from my mom, most of my stuff is self taught. 80% of the flavor of well cooked chicken comes from the "maillard reaction", aka browning your meat. 10% comes from salt, and 10% comes from seasonings and poo poo. to brown your meat, you need either prolonged dry / "radiant" heat (aka, an oven or grill), or a cooking environment which will rapidly evaporate moisture and caramelize the surface of the meat. (aka, a pan with a fat in it, or a deep fryer) suggested recipe : pat dry your thighs, rub them with garlic, salt heavily, toss in flour, and brown your meat in a shallow pan of oil. unplug your crockpot and remove its inner lining. dump your pan fried chicken into the crockpot lining, bring to the table, and serve. watch your guests awe in wonder at how you cooked such wonderful chicken using a crockpot. smile and nod because you're smart, understand how cooking works, and don't loving cook chicken in crockpots .
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Sep 9, 2016 04:43
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Or try this if you like rubbery chicken... http://www.theleangreenbean.com/crockpot-rotisserie-chicken/
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Sep 9, 2016 13:57
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god I feel bad for whoever is married to this woman   
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Sep 10, 2016 06:56
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its uh...... its...... erm.................. its erhhhmmmm, great honey!!! thanks for jummmmm the errr food!  looks... err ............. "delish"!
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Sep 10, 2016 06:58
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Split pea soup with ham hocks, garlic, and bundles of herbs is very good in a crock pot. That's my only contribution to this thread, hope you enjoyed it.
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Sep 10, 2016 17:40
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Electro-Boogie Jack posted:Split pea soup with ham hocks, garlic, and bundles of herbs is very good in a crock pot. That's my only contribution to this thread, hope you enjoyed it. In my experience split pea soup cooks pretty quickly, ~1 hour or so. Unless you just want to really let the hocks stew in there or start with boiling water I don't see the advantage of the crock pot for it.
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Sep 10, 2016 20:39
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I find pulled pork in a crock pot comes out wet and lovely. It doesn't take any longer or any more effort to do it in a cast iron pot in the oven and has the added bonus of not having those wet and slimy characteristics. I will admit to making jambalaya in a crock pot though if I'm at work all day. Rice, chicken stock, chicken thighs, andouille/chorizo and trinity for 8 hours on low. For the last 15-20 minutes add the frozen raw seafood of your choice (I usually go king prawns, but crawfish is probably more authentic) and they'll be just right when the pot switches off. I'm unemployed right now and am not a mid-western, food blogging, stay at home mom with a crippling alcohol problem, so have precisely zero excuses to use a crock pot.
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Sep 11, 2016 14:06
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Theophany posted:I find pulled pork in a crock pot comes out wet and lovely. It doesn't take any longer or any more effort to do it in a cast iron pot in the oven and has the added bonus of not having those wet and slimy characteristics. Don't underestimate the advantage of not having an entire kitchen/ apt being heated up by the oven for hours at a stretch for some people. Also same for leaving an oven on unattended for hours. Right now during the weekdays I live in a tiny cottage house without AC, running the oven for more than an hour makes the entire place unbearable even with all the windows and doors open. Crock pots aren't some "perfect" way to cook nearly anything, but they do work well and have some practical advantages that are worth tweaking / finding recipes that work well with them. For example I would never ever make jambalya in a crock pot as the rice would always be real mushy and the whole dish takes less than 1.5h start to finish in a good dutch oven. But, I almost always make red beans for red beans and rice in one.
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Sep 11, 2016 15:15
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I like the incredible depth of flavour that can be achieved by leaving something in a pot for 48 hours. I won't apologise for it.
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Sep 11, 2016 16:19
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That Works posted:Don't underestimate the advantage of not having an entire kitchen/ apt being heated up by the oven for hours at a stretch for some people. Also same for leaving an oven on unattended for hours. Right now during the weekdays I live in a tiny cottage house without AC, running the oven for more than an hour makes the entire place unbearable even with all the windows and doors open. That's a fair point re heat. Even though my apt is small I can open windows to create a wind tunnel, so never really an issue I'd considered. Strangely enough though, I've never had the rice mushy from crock pot jambalaya. It's definitely not light and fluffy, mind. I do find it interesting my girlfriend's parents cook rice on a low heat for a long time in a cast iron pan and it is perfect. Fun fact: Iranians go through a loving lot of rice - like multiple 10kg sacks of the stuff in their pantry.
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Sep 11, 2016 17:14
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Theophany posted:That's a fair point re heat. Even though my apt is small I can open windows to create a wind tunnel, so never really an issue I'd considered. Yours does't come out mushy? That's fascinating. Mind posting a recipe for it / maybe crossposting it over the cajun food thread? http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3570811 I'd like to give it a try just to see how it compares to my usual method.
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Sep 11, 2016 17:53
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Theophany posted:I find pulled pork in a crock pot comes out wet and lovely. It doesn't take any longer or any more effort to do it in a cast iron pot in the oven and has the added bonus of not having those wet and slimy characteristics. Wait, you won't braise meat in a crockpot, but you'll cook rice in it for 8 hours? You got your poo poo backwards.
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Sep 11, 2016 18:34
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That Works posted:Yours does't come out mushy? That's fascinating. I kind of have to do it from memory now seeing as the page I found the original recipe on has vanished from the internet, but I do it as follows: Brown rice into pot (I normally go for around 350-400g based on a 6 serving yield) but make sure it's not quick cook rice. Having just checked the cupboard, I've been going for the stuff that would normally take 25-30 mins to cook at a fairly decent rolling boil on the hob. I wish I could say that was down to judgement, but it's just that I'm too cheap to buy the quick cook stuff so perhaps that's why it doesn't have a habit of going all mushy? Add to that around 300-400 ml of low sodium chicken stock and a very generous glug of worcester sauce, really doesn't hurt if you're generous with the stock btw, I've never had an issue of too much stock as the rice really does seem to absorb all of the liquid, giving it a robust flavour. Add in rough cut celery, onions and bell peppers, chorizo ring cut up into chunky slices (andouille is too hard to get in the UK) and skinned/boned chicken thighs. Then I chuck in a load of spices - usually paprika, cumin, cayenne and garlic salt and mix until everything has had a good coating. Cook it on low for 4-5 hours and you'll be there, just adding whatever raw frozen shellfish you like 15-20 mins before the cycle is up. If I have any kitchen bouquet, I add a little just to 'juj' up the colouring a little bit and make it all look a touch less uniform when I put the stock in the pot.  I freeze what I don't eat. Reheats in 2.5 mins in an 800W microwave, so an easy lunch or dinner later in the week without the shellfish going all rubbery! I think the difference with this particular recipe is that it doesn't run for the textbook 8 hours - the chicken is pretty much cooked after a couple of hours, the additional time is really to break down the connective tissue to make it more tender. With that in mind and given that thighs are already a pretty fatty and tender cut, you can tailor the cooking time to make sure that the rice doesn't overcook. Crusty Nutsack posted:Wait, you won't braise meat in a crockpot, but you'll cook rice in it for 8 hours? You got your poo poo backwards. I don't have any problem braising in the crock pot, it's an excellent tool for that. I just find that my results for pulled pork in the crockpot give it a soggier kind of texture than I'd like - I much prefer it done in a smoker or on the barbecue, but living in a top floor flat in London pretty much nixes that. I find that I can get a bit closer to the drier texture and result if I do it in a dutch oven when I can much more easily control the amount of liquid by taking the lid off the dutch oven to reduce and not lose any of the cooking heat as you would with a crock pot. Of course, the other variable is added water which is a big issue for supermarket produce in the UK, so you never know just how much liquid will come out of the pork butt during cooking, compounding the problem for me.
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Sep 11, 2016 22:11
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Theophany posted:I kind of have to do it from memory now seeing as the page I found the original recipe on has vanished from the internet, but I do it as follows: Interesting. Thanks! I have been eating/ cooking jambalaya my entire life. Will give this a shot but I am a bit skeptical. If you fancy it, try the recipe here sometime: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3570811#post419606766 Would be interested to see how you think it compares. Biggest difference I see here is this one uses tomato, but creole vs cajun style ones often do. You can omit that and still have it be quite good. Having the paprika/cumin/ kitchen bouquet might help in that case.
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Sep 11, 2016 22:19
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That Works posted:Interesting. Thanks! Ah, now don't go comparing crock pot jambalaya to your recipe on quality alone. Bear in mind that I'm a Brit and this is the best that we can do without proper comparison to the genuine Louisiana article, but it's a hell of a lot better than the ready meal crap we get! Thank you for the link. I'll definitely give it a shot at some point this week or next as I'm curious to see how much better it is doing it the 'proper' way. As handy as the crock pot is for those winter days when its so irresistibly easy to chuck it all in and have a decent meal ready hours later, I much prefer my cast iron ovenware if I have the time on my hands.
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Sep 11, 2016 22:31
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Theophany posted:Ah, now don't go comparing crock pot jambalaya to your recipe on quality alone. Bear in mind that I'm a Brit and this is the best that we can do without proper comparison to the genuine Louisiana article, but it's a hell of a lot better than the ready meal crap we get! Oh sure! I am just curious as jambalaya would seem to be something I would never even attempt to do in a crockpot because I figure it would end up more like congee or something. Even if its not as good it might be interesting to try given the occasional need for convenience / sometimes lack of access to a proper kitchen etc.
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Sep 11, 2016 22:37
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Brown rice vs white is probably a factor.
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Sep 12, 2016 02:05
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I like using a crockpot to slowcook short grain rice
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Sep 12, 2016 17:43
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Oooh, it makes sense now.
Mr. Wiggles fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Sep 13, 2016 |
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Sep 12, 2016 19:13
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Sometimes when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by life, work, et al, I'll fill the crockpot with water and use it as a makeshift sous vide machine to make a tender well-done steak
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Sep 12, 2016 23:41
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Once I have 2 chicken carcasses in the freezer I'll use my slow cooker to slowly boil them plus a bunch of frozen celery tops and carrot tops and onion ends and whatever garlic I have on hand for a few days. I like it when you go to stir it after a day or so and all the bones have fallen apart and congregated at the bottom so when you stir it the heat hits the liquid and there is a rush of bubbles. I just add water whenever it gets to the half full point and continue boiling if it hasn't been at least 3 days. On the negative side, the splash up from the glass lid bubbling away has led to the inside of the crock pot(the heating element part) becoming coated in a toasty brown chicken fat half burned paint. It flakes off easy enough and it never gets hot enough to ignite but it does throw off a smell of hot chicken fat when I'm making stock. Its rewarding when you're done and you strain out all the bones and meat bits and whatever is left of the vegetables and after a day in the fridge its like a savory gelatin, stiff and spreadable like.. day old gravy. I partition it into 2 cup portions in ziplocks and freeze them for beans or soup or something. There is never enough. I have, next to my cassette tape walkman/signed ticket stub/signed cd case tribute to Victor Wooten(and obsolete technology), a pile of all the wishbones from all the chicken's I've cooked since I decided that cooking whole chickens was a thing I was going to do. I mention this because I store my crock pot next to it when it isn't being used to make beans or stock. If it starts to attract bugs I'll get rid of it but I kind of like a little pile of superstitious bones in my kitchen.
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Sep 14, 2016 01:02
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Got a free sack of frozen chicken breasts somehow. Anything i can do with these in the crock pot? i've got a good selection of spices. Would like something i can do with this chicken rice i made, maybe some burritos?
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Sep 21, 2016 04:45
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