SSC 200 A1 9
In general we can say that slow cooking is
an excellent way of preparing stews, soups
and braised dishes.
7.2 Unsuitable food for the slow cooker
Crisply browned food such as steak or roast
meat is not suitable for the slow cooker.
Fish, pasta and dairy products are not
suitable for slow cooking, because they
coagulate or disintegrate. Such delicate
ingredients are added towards the end of
the cooking period.
Red beans contain a particularly high level
of a hazardous protein substance that is
destroyed only by vigorous boiling. They
should therefore always be precooked for
ten minutes at a fast boil before further
cooking in the slow cooker.
Frozen foods should be thawed before
cooking. Temperatures in the slow cooker
are too low to be certain that frozen food
will have been completely cooked.
7.3 Tips and tricks
• Pulses should always be soaked in water
overnight. This greatly reduces the
necessary cooking time. The necessary
cooking time for dry pulses depends
very much on exactly how dry they are,
and is therefore difficult to estimate
accurately.
• Always throw away the water in which
they were soaked, never use it for further
cooking.
• If you plan to mix beans with other
vegetables such as carrots or potatoes,
the beans should be pre-cooked and
then left to stand overnight so that the
cooking times will be more nearly the
same.
•Beans should always be cooked at
“HIGH” in order to destroy their
unwanted proteins and ensure that
cooking does not take too long.
• Beans and hard vegetables such as
carrots or potatoes should always be
completely covered with water while
cooking.
• Cut hard vegetables into regular, not too
large, pieces and always cook them at
the bottom of the cooking pot, because
vegetables take rather longer to cook
than meat.
• You can prepare the ingredients the day
before, place them in the cooking pot
with the lid on and leave it in the
refrigerator overnight, and then simply
put it into the slow cooker for cooking.
• To function properly the cooking pot
should always be at least half full.
• Many dishes involving stewed or stuffed
meat call for it to be seared beforehand.
This gives it a better appearance and the
browning also improves the flavour.
• Remove excess fat from the meat before
cooking it, because the low
temperatures in the slow cooker are not
sufficient to expel it.
• The slow cooker is not suitable for
keeping food hot or warming it up.
• For all poultry and large cuts of other
meat you should use a cooking
thermometer to check its core
temperature to ensure that it is properly
cooked through.
• If there is too much liquid in the cooking
pot 3 at the end of the cooking time,
remove the 1 lid, turn the control knob 7
to “HIGH” and evaporate the excess.
• When cooking soups and stews, the
level of the liquid should always be at
least 3cm below the rim of the cooking
pot 3. This is to prevent it from spilling
when you lift the cooking pot 3 out of
the base 5.
RP91025 slow cooker LB6 Seite 9 Mittwoch, 4. September 2013 2:24 14