Cradock - The slow cooker spends much of its year ignored in a corner of the kitchen, the runt of the kitchen appliance litter.
It can’t be much fun to be my slow cooker. It must feel like the kid who prefers to take the desk in the back corner of the classroom and hope not to be noticed most of the time. It probably resents me, like that kid does his teacher.
And for good reason. Slow cookers are not my favourite appliance. I like to be able to put food into a pan on a proper heat, not leave it to waft insipidly through the cooking process like a waif lost in the woods, too weak to find the way out, too wan to care.
But the slow cooker can suddenly and unexpectedly come into its own, like the ignored kid at the back of the class whose turn finally comes, and all eyes turn on him, and he delivers a clever, amusing oral and to their surprise the rest of his classmates smile and cheer him. The unexpected hero.
My slow cooker became an unexpected hero this week. This transpired because the slow cooker’s much admired and much larger cousin, the Defy stove, went on the blink quite spectacularly. After crashing the electricity board and plunging us all into darkness, several times, after giving me several electric shocks and just minutes after I had put a nice piece of topside beef in to roast, I glared at the offending stove and then turned to find my eye alighting on the slow cooker in the corner. You’ll have to do, I muttered as the appliance blinked uncertainly. It seemed to feel much like the kid whose real reason for sitting in the corner at the back is that he hates giving orals, is terrified of speaking in front of people. Would it have to come out and be on show, have to perform, actually do something for its sorry, slow-lived life? Yes, as it happened, it would.
Even when using this sizeable black pot, which lurks in its warm cave like a hermit crab, I prefer to first brown onions and the like in a pot on the favoured stove to give them flavour. But that I could not do this time for reasons explained. That browning is important if you want a dish to have as much taste as possible.
But Slow Cooker was to prove to its cynical owner that if you allow it enough time, and put the right ingredients into it, you can have a dish with spectacular flavour and, of course, the expected super-tender meat that this fella likes to deliver. I cooked the beef joint in the slow cooker with tinned tomatoes, sliced leeks, many sage leaves, red wine, the juice and zest of a lemon, and halved button mushrooms, finishing it with some creme fraiche, and after pretty much a day of being soothed by the slow cooker’s unheralded charms, it came out utterly delicious.
So much so that two days later I got the slow cooker out again and cooked a lamb knuckle curry in it.
Again, I like to braise my curry spices before adding any wet ingredients, but the stove was still on the blink and I did not want to use that other ugly duckling of my kitchen appliances, the microvwave oven, also known as the defroster and milk warmer. Even the slow cooker blanches when it sees my rare approaches to the microwave. I approach it the way Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous approaches food – an unknown entity.
So I had to be content to use the slow cooker for the curry from scratch.
Slow-cooker curry
No quantities this week as we’re cooking instinctively, relying on the senses of taste and smell, and using stuff that’s already in the cupboard. Have a scrounge and see what you can find. Be brave. You’ll need:
Onion
Garlic
Lamb knuckles and neck
A tin of chopped tomatoes
Cold water
Spices such as cinnamon, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, curry leaves
Masala
Salt
I turned it to its highest heat, which is so low that the word “high” really does not apply, and once it had warmed up I put in some of the dry ingredients hoping they would develop their flavours a little by the application of insipid warmth. I chopped onions and crushed garlic and threw them in, adding a tin of chopped Italian tomatoes. I then filled the tin with cold water and added that, throwing in a whole cinnamon stick, a tablespoonful of mustard seeds, a whole (small) packet of dried curry leaves, and the leftover contents of two small packets of masala – one was “mutton masala”, the other akhni.
There was no measuring involved, I just chucked it all in, added salt, stirred and added the chunks of lamb knuckle and neck, then stuck the lid on and forgot about it for the rest of the day.
That’s the point of a slow cooker – it is used to being ignored, so you can just leave it in its corner to sulk and skulk like that bored kid who probably did not do very well in matric (I should know, the kid was me).
If the meat happens to have a fair amount of fat on it, either cut it, or most of it, off before adding it to the pot or wait until everything is very tender and then skim the fat off the top with a spoon or ladle. You can, if you like, add a little cornflour stirred into cold milk and then into the sauce, to thicken it for the last hour or so of cooking.
As for quantities, I haven’t given them here because this is one of those let’s-see-what’s-in-the-cupboard sort of dishes, and really, once in a while everyone should cook something instinctively, relying only on your senses of smell and taste.
Make some rice in the microwave, if your stove is on the blink. The formula is to use one part rice to two parts water and microwave on high for about 20 minutes. It’s done when it looks and tastes done, and when there’s no water left in it. Be strong, you can do it, like finally giving that oral presentation you were dreading in English class and having your classmates cheer you.
Weekend Argus