3
economy Long, slow cooking can tenderise the cheaper, tougher cuts of meat, and
uses about a quarter of the power of the small ring on the average hob.
convenience Prepare the ingredients the night before, put them in the slow cooker before
you leave, and have a delicious meal waiting for you when you get home.
C TEMPERATURE CONTROL
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1 For traditional slow cooking.
2 For “fast cooking”, using the appliance as an electric stewpot.
O For keeping the food warm after cooking.
C GENERAL
1 Thaw frozen food completely before adding it to the cookpot.
2 Store ingredients prepared beforehand (e.g. the night before) in containers in the fridge.
Don’t put the slow cooker or the cookpot into the fridge.
meat
3 When roasting, the juices don’t spit or evaporate, so flavour and nutritive value are retained.
The size and shape of the joint, its quality, and the proportion of lean, fat and bone, all affect
cooking times. Experience will soon help you judge these.
4 Avoid meat which has a high proportion of fat, or trim the excess fat.
poultry
5 Wash and dry the poultry and season inside and out.
6 Brown the skin in its own fat or a little cooking oil, in a large frying pan.
fish
7 To retain flavour and texture, fish shouldn’t be cooked for long periods.
8 Grease the base of the cookpot with butter or margarine.
9 Clean, trim and wash the fish. Dry and place in the cookpot.
10 Season, sprinkle with lemon juice, then add hot stock, water or wine.
11 Dot butter over the fish, and cook on low (1) for 2-3 hours.
vegetables
12 Quickly cooked vegetables, like frozen peas and sweetcorn, must be thawed, then added half
an hour before the end of cooking.
13 Root vegetables, tubers, and bulbs (carrots, potatoes, onions) take much longer to cook than
meat, so cut them to about 5mm thick slices, sticks or dice, and sauté them gently for 2-3
minutes before adding to the cookpot.
pulses (beans, peas and lentils)
, You must boil dried beans (e.g. red kidney beans) for at least 10 minutes before adding them
to the slow cooker. They’re poisonous if eaten raw or under-cooked.
14 Soak dried peas and beans for 8 hours (or overnight) before cooking, to soften them.
15 You don’t need to soak lentils overnight.
16 When cooking with rice, use at least 150ml of cooking liquid for each 100g of rice. We’ve
found that “easy-cook” rice gives the best results.
17 Pasta gets too soft for slow cooking. If your recipe requires pasta, stir it in 30-40 minutes
before the end of the cooking.
instructions
diagrams
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1 low
2 high
O keep warm
3 light
4 temperature control
5 lid knob
6 lid
7 cookpot
8 handle
` dishwasher safe