Are slow cookers shit?

[rainbowstardrops]

I mean, I know they’re not shit but I’m currently cooking a Thai beef dish and it looks absolutely nothing like the picture in the recipe book. It looks dull and watery and just so unappetising.
Am I being unreasonable to think that the bloody recipes in these books look nothing like the final result photos?
Oh and I put half of the chilli flakes in because one of mine doesn’t like spicy (I do) but this is even setting my mouth on fire!
Pah!

I tried one but didn’t get on with it. I prefer a low temperature in my oven for a slow cook.

Only if you don’t know how to cook

Yes, you’d only use a slow cooker if you didn’t know how to cook. Spot on.

Bloody love mine, do sometimes have to thicken things at the end using cornflour

I only use mine for a beef stew and dumplings, carrots on the bottom, onion, random veg and maybe potatoes with the seared beef on top. A beef stew powder mix and very little water and no stirring until the evening! When I get home I put in the dumplings for 30 mins or so.
Sometimes I add some gravy granules to thicken the sauce.
I have got the Poppy Cooks slow cooker book and looking forward to trying some of the recipes.

They are, you are right

I basically use mine for making mulled wine. Time to hunt it out of storage.

Hahahaha!!! Love it! 😁

I’ve both seared meat and sauted onions etc and I’m not entirely sure I can see an obvious difference 🤷🏻‍♀️

Well opinions are fairly divided so far!
I do like my slow cooker (because I can sort it early on and then just leave it), I’m just not seeing the amazing results that others seem to find 🤷🏻‍♀️
I’ll continue to try and luckily, my (adult) children simply eat what I put in front of them but I’d like to actually be quite proud of a slow cooker dinner! 😁

Slow cookers are great. Be cautious about how much liquid you add.

Yes in my experience. Everything gets turned into bland mush. Or if you add less liquid it boils dry. Got rid of mine.

Did a slow cooker cheat on you once or something?

I love mine! Used it almost every day this week. Had a lasagne in it today and doing creamy Tuscan chicken orzo tomorrow. It's brilliant for us coming home to dinner and not rushing. Or reaching for a takeaway 🙈

Not in my slow cooker they don’t. Sorry, but it’s probably the recipes you’re using. Slow cookers need much less liquid than conventional casseroles as they don’t evaporate liquid as much casseroles done on the stove or in the oven.

I guess people have different tastes and preferences. I reckon I can tell a slow-cooked dinner a mile off. There is a distinct taste of school canteen about it, no matter what it is. If you have to faff around searing the meat and frying off the onions anyway then you may as well just make a decent casserole in the oven the night before and reheat on the stovetop.

@MorrisonsPlatterit has blown my mind, it’s a Tesco recipe I follow that and then also add some chorizo which I brown off and then add to the pan with the prawns!

I don’t do any prep to food before I stick it in the slow cooker. No one has ever commented negatively on the meals I make in mine, but many friends have bought one themselves after eating at ours and asking for the recipe and finding out it was done in the slow cooker.

Agree with this - we use our slow cooker all winter and have some amazing, rich, flavoursome dinners from it. The watery slop others are describing are completely alien to me!

Perhaps you’ve just eaten at shit places? My husband used to be a chef and uses a slow cooker to make casseroles etc in the winter and they’re amazing. Nothing school canteen about it 😂 I’m at a loss as to how oven cooking something could result in a better result than searing and slow cooking.

I have a big original Tower,china bowl, metal lid. From the 1980s.It's brilliant, everyone loves the food. It's not watery,or bland or tasteless. I did a Christmas cake in there a couple of years ago,it was gorgeous.

Oven cooking allows evaporation of liquid, concentrating flavours and giving more depth to them. In a slow cooker the moisture is trapped and cannot escape, so it’s not possible to get the same taste.

Take a dish with tinned or fresh tomato in it. They contain a lot of water, but conventional cooking allows some of that to evaporate, intensifying the tomato flavour. In a slow cooker that water evaporates, condenses on the lid and drops back into the pot, That doesn’t mean that slow cooked food tastes bad, but it’s incontrovertible that slow cooked food does taste different to that cooked in an oven or on a hob, and many of us can tell the difference. A few posters have suggested sticking a tea towel between the lid a pot of a slow cooker to absorb moisture. Maybe that helps, or maybe it makes the food taste of damp tea towel 😂

I think it’s knowing how to adjust for that
i season more heavily for the slow cooker, massively reduce liquids, use more umami flavours etc so you’re not having to bother about evaporation and concentrating flavours because you’ve already allowed for it
I don’t like everything in a slow cooker but it works for the stuff I do like

You don't need to use a pan to reduce the liquid, just take the lid off the sc.

Ah excellent topic. I'm unimpressed with mine too although I have one stew recipe which is acceptable and it's useful for a Sunday dinner if I'm out during the day.

For the same reason- potential disappointment- I'm avoiding buying an airfryer too.