The contraption: Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore

I asked Santa for a slow cooker.

My thinking, of course, was since I'm doing more pot lucks where I can neither pop home to get my prepared dish, nor have access to a proper stove, a slow cooker was the obvious option. I can either cook it during the day in some accessable space, or keep whatever I've made the night before warm enough to be palatable.

Santa heard. Santa bought. Santa delivered.

I'm now the owner of a seven quart (6.5L) slow cooker.

I fully realise that me (single and childless) owning such a vessel is akin to Kate Moss owning a 38G bra: wishful thinking at best, delusional at worst.

That's what Santa brought, so that's what I'm going to spend the next year of my life learning how to use.

My introduction to the contraption was akin to setting myself down in front of a blind date. After years of listening to friends and colleagues go on and on about how wonderful it is, and how we'd probably get along, there it sat across from me, all shiny and full of promise. I even found a recipe which I adjusted to better suit my palate.

And like many a blind date, I'm left wondering why on Earth I got my hopes up.

Problem number one: I read the instruction manual. Apparently only qualified operators are allowed to use it. How does one become a qualified operator? Well, one must read and thoroughly understand the manual. No testing. No certificate. Not even a tinned bit of Edward Elgar by kazoo.

I guess if I burned my condo down because I thought I understood the instructions, the manufacturer is trying to absolve itself of any liability. By their logic I obviously lack the necessary mind-reading skills deduce the manual-writer's intention, regardless of what he, she or it committed to words. Talk about a Catch-22.

Problem number two: I bought a couple of slow cooker cookbooks, both of which strongly suggested I brown meat and do some pre-cooking. This baffles me. I thought the entire idea of a slow cooker was essentially a one-pot, wham-bam-forget-it-ma'am type way to feed myself and the invisible army that my slow cooker's capacity dictates.

By the time I was done browning the meat (and by choice the sauteeing mushrooms and onions) I realised that I could easily finish the entire meal in about an hour or so, leaving the pot to quietly blurble away on a nearly invisible flame just to keep it warm. Regardless, by the end of it, I had three pots to wash.

But this was my first slow cooker meal. As per the manual, I didn't preheat the cooker and tipped everything into the pot.

Problem number three: My name is Jasmine and I'm a home cook. I adjust flavours as I go. I know even though these two carrots came from the same bag, this carrot over here could be more carrotty in taste than that one over there. I know that this chicken over here may have actually had the opportunity to walk around before it met with its Marie Antoinette-like fate, where as her cousin was probably stuck in some cage somewhere before she became a cellophaned carcass in the bigscarymegamart's meat case. In other words: ingredients are subject to variations in flavour. I may need more sour, less salt and maybe some sugar than a recipe calls to make the flavours balance. I don't know until I start browning and mixing and sniffing and tasting.

Slow cooking doesn't really allow me to do such adjustments. Every time I open the lid, I need to add 20 minutes of cooking time. Three lifted lids means an extra hour of cooking. So, in hopes of not adding cooking time, I prayed to the kitchen gods that I balanced out the flavours correctly before I turned on the contraption.

Good gravy.

Which leads to problem number four: This is a mightily wet cooking method. Whereas most stews and saucy dishes I make benefit from slow cooking but also reducing liquids to produce clinging, thick, flavourful sauces, my first venture into slow cooking left me with a very wet, soup-like stew. Of course I could add a thickener: a beurre manié or cornflour, but they lack the flavour building that evaporation brings. I must admit that when I reheated leftovers the next day, I tipped everything into my wok and simmered it for about 20 minutes. I was happier.

Before I did that, I tasted it.

Problem number five: Everything tastes the same. The carrots taste like the chicken taste like the mushrooms taste like the peppers. Maybe it's my innate Canadianness, but I think dishes like soups and stews are better when you can actually appreciate and identify individual ingredients, and how well they work together, as opposed to tedious homogeneity.

I know. It seems weird and somewhat wrong. This elevated concept of dump and heat "cooking" is my 2010 project. It's a bit more than that. I'm trying to convince myself that this contraption is not a waste of space, nor a waste of Santa's hard-earned money. My books tell me this thing is much more than an overblown soup-maker, and can make puddings and cakes as well as roasts and ribs. Wish me luck. I think I'm going to need it.

Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore
1.5 kg chicken, cubed into 2-3cm pieces
225g sliced mushrooms
1 rib celery, sliced thinly
1 carrot, sliced into thinnish coins
2 onions, sliced into lunettes
1 bell pepper, slivered
3 Cloves garlic, minced
1 x 796ml tin chopped tomatoes
1 tsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
0.5 tsp dried thyme
0.5 tsp dried rosemary
Olive oil

Saute onions and mushrooms until soft. Remove to cooker.

Brown chicken in olive oil, remove to cooker.

In a slow cooker, place the carrots, celery, pepper, tomatoes, garlic, thyme, rosemary, salt, pepper, chicken broth and chicken. Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours.




cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!

On My Rickety Shelves: Fat

Thanks to the lovely people at Random House, a copy of this month's cookbook selection was delivered to my kitchen.

Fat: An appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient with recipes
By Jennifer McLagan
McLelland & Stewart/Random House Canada
240 pages; $37.95

Fat is vilified. Whether it’s a woman’s natural curves or a recipe’s call for lard, this basic stuff which of which we’re made and need is the same stuff entertainment and corporate-sponsored “food experts” tell us to ostracise and eliminate.

Ironic, this, given in stressful times when we need comfort, we are drawn towards fat (as well as it’s taboo’d compatriots, sugar and fat)—whether it’s a bowl of rich ice cream covered in hot caramel sauce or a bolstering embrace by soft arms.

Jennifer McLagan’s Fat: An appreciation of a misunderstood ingredient with recipes
takes on populist thinking of the past 30-40 years, and tells us that fat, unadulterated by undue processing, needs to regain its rightful place in our diets.

She reminds us that up until the last century, fat was good: we wanted a “fat paycheque” so we could buy the plumpest chicken and those who didn’t get enough fat in their diets were often ill (something I still maintain), as well as what the food industry has done to degrade our collective health such as introducing quantities of trans-fat laidened hydrogenated fats and easily oxidised polyunsaturated oils.

McLagan’s well-written and thoughtful work focuses on four animal fats, some in regular, purposeful home kitchen use, but others not so: butter, pork fat, poultry fat and beef and lamb fat. While photographs do not accompany each recipe, the images provided are vibrant and lovely. The book is also dotted with mini-essays about the importance of fat in history, whether it is pemmican, Haseka “The Butter Saint” or the origins of Fat Tuesday.

What I find most helpful are the instructions for once-common bits of kitchen business such as rendering fats or removing marrow from beef bones, the latter I needed to make her Risotto Milanese. Her no-nonsense words guided me through the process well enough to produce an amazing dish.

As with my other reviews, the proof of a book’s value is in the recipes. Here are the ones I attempted:

Mixed Spiced Nuts (p36)
I’m not a fan of processed spiced nuts—manufacturers tend to mistake salt and sugar for flavour. Combining the resinous hints of rosemary, cumin’s and coriander’s smokiness, salt sugar and a bit of heat, these buttered nuts were easy and almost disparagingly deliciously addictive.


Pumpkin and Bacon Soup (p83)
I liked this soup, but I didn’t love it. It was nearly effortless, but even though smoky bacon and its rendered fat were used, it lacked depth of flavour. I will make this again, but instead of using plain water, I’ll use vegetable or chicken stock or perhaps apple juice.

Simple Roast Chicken (p138)
Often simple is best. McLaglan’s recommendations very closely mimicked my own standard roast chicken recipe, and it produced a bird with juicy meat and crispy, golden skin. My only qualm is I felt 100g of butter was too much, and I’d easily halve the amount.

Risotto Milanese (p195)
I’ve rarely found a risotto recipe that matches the dish I had in Milan six years ago. McLagan’s recipe uses beef marrow, along with butter to make this perhaps the most luxurious risotto I’ve ever had.





So how does it rate?
Overall: 3.6/5
The breakdown:
Recipe Selection: 4/5
Writing: 3.5/5
Ease of use: 3.5/5
Yum factor: 3.5/5
Table-top test: Lies flat

Kitchen comfort-level: Intermediate
Pro: A good range of recipes ranging drawn from a number of cuisines.
Con: This isn’t a book for those who need or want to be coddled in the kitchen.


cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!

I is a grown up: removing marrow from beef bones

I first felt adult when I set up my first Registered Retirement Savings Plan. I guess that says a lot about me. It wasn’t when I passed my driver’s test. It wasn’t when I cast my first vote. It wasn’t when I could legally drink.

In my mid-20s and in my first real job I knew I didn’t want to be one of those grannies who subsist on tea and toast, with only the government pension scheme keeping me off the streets. Setting up an RRSP seemed like right thing to do to better fund a retirement which was decades away. Retirement is still decades away and despite my best efforts, other moments keep my maturity needle keeps edging towards adulthood.

Grown-up moments in my kitchen have been known to happen.

In as practical a matter as cooking is, I simply love to clatter pots and pans and will roll up my sleeves and do what’s necessary. No fanfare. No melodramatic noises. I know not everyone is comfortable with dismembering a bird or resurrect the Spanish Inquisition when heating up a vat of oil for deep fat frying, but these bits of business are regular occurrences in my kitchen.

That’s not to say I don’t celebrate scaling my own Everests. Whether it was my first caramel that didn’t turn into a crystallised charred glob or creating a pastry that doesn’t make one wax lyrically about boot leather, these accomplishments are quietly celebrated and reinforced whatever culinary acumen possess.

Earth-shattering? No. Nobel or James Beard Prize-winning? Not in the slightest. Moments that forward my kitchen’s progress? Yes.

My most recent maturing moment came when I had to extract marrow from beef bones.

The oleophobic and hemophobic, squeamish about biological bits of kitchen work may simply want to turn away now.

I’ve often seen marrow bones in the bigscarymegamart’s butcher’s case. Honestly, apart from a slurp of broth, or sopping up drippings from a roast, I’ve not really considered them for much. A chosen recipe from the next cookery review demanded I use beef marrow…and for that I needed to, well, extract beef marrow from beef bones

To remove marrow from beef bones, a bit of exsanguination must take place. Scooping it from an unsoaked bone will result in globules of cooked blood in your finished dish. You may or may not care, but for my usage, I had no inclination to dig into a dish, splattered with greyed brown.

To remove the blood from the bones, cover the bones in saline ice water solution (two tablespoons of salt mixed into the water) and refrigerate for 12-24 hours. Completely change the water ever three or four hours, replacing the pinkish solution with increasingly salty water, adding two tablespoons of salt to each saline solution (the first change will have four tablespoons of salt, the third, six tablespoons, etc).

At the end of the process, remove the soaked bones to a pan of simmering, salted water. Simmer them, uncovered for about 5-10 minutes, or until the marrow just loosens from the bone. Removed to a paper towel-lined plate and let sit until cool enough to handle.

With the aid of a paring knife, loosen the marrow from the bones and push the fatty pieces into a bowl of icy water. You can refrigerate the marrow until it’s ready to use.

And that’s all that was needed for this rite of passage.

cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!