Slow cooker experts - please help

[nkf]

I have one. I love it. But...
Often the food is greasy and I have to drain off the sauce. I trim as much fat as I can off the meat but even so.
It's often a bit bland. Do you find you have to use loads and loads of herbs/spices/salt/pepper to get a decent amount of savouriness (not sure if that's a word but you know what you mean.)

No ideas? Me neither.

What recipes are you using, and what cuts of meat?

All sorts really. For example, I've just cooked some stewing lamb. Cut off all the fat I could. Still greasy. Got rid of the sauce and now it's less greasy but bland because the seasoning has gone with the sauce.

Do you brown your meat before putting it in the pot?

Usually.

That's my theory out the window!

I always cook a lamb casserole the day before we're going to eat it and take the fat off the top when it solidifies. Lamb is notoriously fatty - even if you use neck fillet which I occasionally do (at great expense). My mum never cooked a stew or anything similar the day she wanted to eat it - she hated anything greasy and took the view that if you cooled it quickly and left it overnight it gave the flavours time to infuse and you could skim the fat off that settled on the top before it was re-heated.
As to browning the meat before - I do simply because the recipe book that came with my slow cooker tells me to. I've currently got a paprika pork cooking so that it will be ready to eat tomorrow. I softened the onions and browned the meat before I put it in the cooker this morning with 2 big tablespoons of paprika, salt and pepper and 300mls of stock. I'll turn it off in the next hour or so, cool it quickly and stir in half a tub of creme fraiche before putting it in the fridge overnight. If it needs any additional seasoning I'll add that before serving. I think the thing to remember with slow cooking is that you don't lose any of the liquid whilst it's cooking. When I cook casseroles in my proper oven the stock always reduces down which concentrates the flavour in the slow cooker the liquid hardly reduces down at all

The day before makes sense. Now it's a very slow cooker.

Lamb has a lot of fat, the way a slow cooker works more fat from betweent the meat melts and has no where to go.

Stop pre browning, you don't need to.

Okay. It all makes sense. I will go for day before cooking and skim off the fat when cold. And when I reheat, I can do it without a lid so the sauce can reduce.

Millymae, I like the sound of that pork dish.

Thanks everyone.

cornflour is my savouir!

Added when?

I'm with millymae on the day before theory.
I think it is true of a lot of "stew-type" dishes whether done in slow cooker or not.
I always make by Spag Bol the day before we eat it and the same with mince (for mince and tatties).
Slow cooked lamb I always do in the oven on the lowest setting possible for many many hours.

use less liquid than you think you need and more seasoning always for a slowpot...there is less evaporation and intensifying of flavours.

If you have a more modern one you can leave the lid off for the last hour which helps reduce the stock.....I find the newer slowpots are much hotter than older ones.

Excess fat can be due to the cheaper fattier cuts of meat used, so cooking the day before and putting it in the fridge overnight to skim it off can be a good idea. And obv use less oil for browning/sweating veg.

ANd I know lots of folks say there's no need to brown the meat before, but I like to and I really do think it makes a difference.

I brown the meat mainly for colour. I don't like the pallid look of unbrowned meat. I'm just going to have to get organised really. Cooking a day in advance is a bit of a bore but I guess I can batch cook. I have the original Crockpot and it seems to get pretty hot.