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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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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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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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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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Boof Bonser posted:I got my first ever crock pot recipe from goons about 10 years ago and still use it now. Take a pork shoulder and pack it densely in a shell of brown sugar. Dump worchestershire (sp.?) sauce over the top of it until it pools up about 1/8" deep in the bottom of the crock. Throw in 2-3 sliced jalapenos. Cook on low for a really long time. It forks up into the absolute best pulled pork in the world. Is the whole sugar and pork shoulder thing really that good? I can't get over those recipes that say coke or dr. pepper when it comes to a ham, so putting sugar on meat just doesn't compute to me. I can't get over my hangup that sweet and savoury don't belong together. 
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Sep 21, 2016 20:33
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