The Pitters' Place

Anyone know any Autumnal recipes for a main dish where I can just throw everything into a slow cooker (no pre-cooking in a skillet)?

You can slow cook lamb shanks really well - works much better if you can fry off the shanks before you put them in the slow cooker tho.

Really - you can slow cook almost anything - Bolognese, curries - whatever you like as long as it requires that your meat cooked thru.

Osso bucco is one of my all time slow cooker favourites - but like with the shanks, and almost anything else, its works best when you fry off the meat first.

Another thought, will doubling ingredients increase cook time for a slow cooker?

Unvoiced_Apollo wrote:Another thought, will doubling ingredients increase cook time for a slow cooker?

Sort of - it will take longer for whatever is in the slow cooker to heat up but once everything is at a cooking temperature it will take the same time to cook regardless of how much is in the pot.

Its convection heating rather than say - microwave.. Matter in a microwave oven share absorb the energy produced by the microwaves. So that double the volume means the food gets half the energy per pound. Convection brings thing to a temperature and maintains that temperature for the duration of the cook meaning the food will all cook at the same rate once the temperature is established regardless of how much you put in there.

thesalmonofdoubt wrote:

Unvoiced_Apollo wrote:Another thought, will doubling ingredients increase cook time for a slow cooker?

Sort of - it will take longer for whatever is in the slow cooker to heat up but once everything is at a cooking temperature it will take the same time to cook regardless of how much is in the pot.

Its convection heating rather than say - microwave.. Matter in a microwave oven share absorb the energy produced by the microwaves. So that double the volume means the food gets half the energy per pound. Convection brings thing to a temperature and maintains that temperature for the duration of the cook meaning the food will all cook at the same rate once the temperature is established regardless of how much you put in there.

I used 7.65 lbs of pork shoulder, but that likely included the bone, which isn't part of the recipe. Recipe called for 3-4 lbs. The only other ingredients were a marinade & spices. Calls fpr 6 hours on low. Any recommendations?

I wouldn't worry too much - slow cooking isn't a precise science, generally speaking the longer you cook for, the better the results given the idea is the meat is cooked pretty early on, the length of the cook from that point onwards is to break down the connective tissue in the meat to make it "Pull apart" tender. In effect, you can't really over cook anything that goes in a slow cooker, you only make it better by leaving it in longer.

So - for double the amount of meat your issue will be getting the temperature thru the meat to the point where its cooked before it starts breaking down the connective tissue. I would probably put it on high for a bit, maybe an hour - then turn it down to low and cook from that point on for the six hours. In reality tho - you just check it every now and then and see whether its become tender enuff to your liking.

If you just want to set and forget (Like if you are heading out for the day) .. I'd probably add a couple of hours to the cooking time or set the temperature to medium and cook for the same amount of time checking in whenever you can to see how things are progressing and adjust the temperature if needed then.

I cook pork shoulder in my crock pot all the time, usually a shoulder cut ranging from 4-6 lbs. I either start it at night and pull it apart in the morning or start it before work and pull it when I get back; as salmon said using a crockpot isn't a precise science at all and is very forgiving. I usually shoot for around 8 hours of cooking time but anywhere from 8-10 is probably fine.

Edit: low setting, of course.

A little disappointed in what I turnef out. At least nothing is tough or burned, just a little dry. I get the feeling 6-7 would have been more enough for what I had, but I needed my 8 hrs of sleep.

Sucks really because shoulder wasn't really what I wanted (it was the next best thing going by the recipe) but couldn't find the cut I really needed until after I had the shoulder. I didn't really want to spend more, but maybe I should've picked up the pork belly after all.

Damn American stores and the prevalence of bacon. Really wish I went to one of two international stores when I had the chance (where I found it when picking up Filipino cane vinegar & Filpiino soy sauce) Nearly every culture has some pork belly recipe.

That's odd that it was dry. What was the recipe that you used?

http://www.food.com/recipe/filipino-ado ... ion-281472" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I had to increase the amount to get the servings I needed.

That said, it seems I was being hard on myself as everyone seemed to like it.

Hmm cutting the meat into chunks may have caused the individual pieces to cook faster and dry out; I keep the pork in 1 whole chunk. I also make sure whatever braising liquid I put in is enough to completely cover it, the amounts in the recipe seem somewhat on the low side at first glance.

Boomer wrote:Hmm cutting the meat into chunks may have caused the individual pieces to cook faster and dry out; I keep the pork in 1 whole chunk. I also make sure whatever braising liquid I put in is enough to completely cover it, the amounts in the recipe seem somewhat on the low side at first glance.

I figure it was the former, but as I said everyone seemed to like it.

Every adobo recipe I can find has the liquid on the low side.