Please talk me through the cornflour trick.

[FessaEst]

I have recently acquired a slow cooker, and love that I can do prep the night before, and love how tender cheap meat it. I can't seem to get over the watery-sauce problem though? Even though I am following slow cooker recipes, the amount of stock always seems too much (so am going to automatically halve from now on). I have tried mixing a roux with liquid and cornflour and adding it, but it didn't do a lot. Am I getting this wrong? What do others do? TIA.

Not for a slow cooker - but if I am making gravy or a stew in a dutch oven, and it's too runny I mix 1 teaspoon of cornflour with 3 teaspoons of red wine vinegar, or cider vinegar to a smooth paste, then add another few teasoons of vinegar to make it runny.then I add to the sauce or stew and mix in.

Water makes for a clumpy mess, vinegar seems to make it smoother.

HTH

I don't have a slow-cooker but, to avoid too much watery juice in regular stews, I use a bare minimum of liquid... quarter pint max, less in casseroles with vegetables ... and sprinkle in a handful of red lentils. The lentils disappear to a fluff which thickens the juices without adding any extra flavours.

Thank you! Binfill does adding that amount of cornflour thicken the sauce drastically?

Cog I do put lentils in loads of stuff - I guess I have been following recipes quite rigidly while I get ino the slow cooker! Need to get back to chucking the occasional handful of randomness in!

The cornflour and water works best if you bring it just to the boil.
I ladle out a large ammount of liquid just before I'm ready to serve,
put it in a pan and heat until just starting to bubble then mix a heaped table spoon of cornflour in water,
then pour it in through a sieve,
keep stirring until the sauce thickens up repeating if needed,
then pour it all back in the slow cooker to serve.

Just as a note I do thike my gravies and sauces thick, if you don't then probably a level tablespoon would be better.

like not thike!

I think the problem with slow cookers is the fact that they are designed to take their time which is great for tender meat but no good for last minute adjustments, which is why notso's idea of thickening the sauce outside the slow cooker is good.

Lentils or potato cut small (to break up and thicken not to be lumps in a stew) are good, gravy granules or tomato puree also work, but like cornflour need time to cook out

Thank you all, lots of tips to try!

Made the garlic chicken from the MN Slow cooker recipes tonight, and although I had added no liquid, there was a lot of juice in the slow cooker by the end, so I guess that shows why things get watery!

I always chuck a handful of pearl barley in my stews - not slow cooker, though, I'm not that lucky

This is cheating but when I use my slowcooker I couldn't get the cornflour to do its job, probably my fault. I'm impatient and hate watery sauce so I bought some thickening granules from Sainsburys. Can't remember who makes them, not Sainsburys own but they come in a blue tub and work a treat in the morning or add right at the end (i prefer to do this so I can see the amount I need).