Slow cookers are widely loved by busy individuals: in the morning, various ingredients are placed in the cooker, and come evening, there’s no need to put in much effort to enjoy a delicious, tender, and flavorful meal. While this sounds wonderful, in practice, it is sometimes discovered that not everything that ends up in your mouth is a culinary delight, but rather it might be considered as “dark cuisine.”
This is because some ingredients are not suitable for long, low-temperature cooking. This extended cooking time can make them too soft or mushy, even altering or causing them to lose their intended flavors.
A slow cooker can transform some tough and stringy meats into tender, flavorful dishes that melt in your mouth, like beef shank, oxtail, pork shoulder, and more. However, other types of meats can become tough and dry in a slow cooker, such as chicken breast, pork tenderloin, filet mignon, etc. These lean meats with less fat are better suited for quick cooking methods like stir-frying, pan-searing, or grilling.
Often, we purchase expensive high-quality meats to savor their natural sweetness and tender texture, attributes that a slow cooker can compromise. This means we end up spending more money only to taste a texture similar to regular meats. Slow cookers are mainly suitable for cooking tougher cuts of meat that require a longer time to tenderize.
Usually, meat skin should be seared to a crisp, oily but not greasy, to be delicious. In a slow cooker, the meat skin often becomes flabby and greasy, unappetizingly altering its texture. Hence, meat skin is best prepared using high-temperature methods like pan-searing or grilling.
Fish, shellfish, and other seafood are not suitable for long, low-temperature cooking. They tend to cook quickly, preserving their delicate sweetness, elasticity, and freshness, without needing the assistance of a slow cooker to soften or flavor them. Using a slow cooker to simmer seafood can easily ruin their beloved textures.
However, there is an exception, including squid, octopus, and similar seafood. These types of seafood offer different flavors when either slow-cooked or quickly cooked. Some regional Chinese cuisines even use octopus in slow-cooked soups.
Dairy products such as milk, yogurt, and cream are not suitable for lengthy heating as it can cause them to curdle and form floating white particles in a murky liquid. Besides animal milk fats, plant-based milks like coconut milk, almond milk, etc., are also not recommended for slow cooker use.
If you wish to incorporate dairy products into slow-cooked dishes, it is best to add them 5 minutes before removing the dish from heat.
Fresh aromatic herbs like basil, cilantro, etc., are not suitable for prolonged heating as this can cause them to become yellowish and lose their aromatic qualities. If these herbs are needed in a slow-cooked dish, it’s advised to add them at the last moment before serving.
However, some robust herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano, can be cooked in a slow cooker, but it is important not to add too much as the slow cooking process can intensify their flavors, potentially overpowering the dish.
Crunchy and tender vegetables are not suited for prolonged heating in a slow cooker, such as lettuce, fresh asparagus, zucchini, etc. Tender leafy greens can become wilted during long cooking, and other leafless veggies risk losing their crisp sweetness.
However, many vegetables are suitable for slow cooking. Generally, it’s easy to determine whether a vegetable is best enjoyed crisp or tender before deciding to cook it in a slow cooker.
Al dente pasta is considered delicious. Typically, pasta is boiled in water, sauce is cooked separately, and they are mixed just before serving. If pasta or any other noodles are cooked for too long, they can become mushy or overcooked, significantly reducing their texture.
Similar to noodles, high-starch foods like rice are not suitable for slow cooking as they can turn into a mushy consistency. Of course, if you want to prepare rice porridge or congee dishes, you can disregard this advice.
Adding alcohol during cooking primarily aims to enhance the dish’s flavors, not to make the diners drink more. Normally, alcohol evaporates quickly during high-temperature cooking processes. However, in a slow cooker, liquids do not evaporate as readily, so the amount of alcohol added to a slow-cooked dish remains largely intact, potentially overpowering the dish with a strong alcoholic taste. Therefore, it’s recommended to not add alcohol to slow-cooked dishes, or if necessary, add only a small amount.
In conclusion, these ingredients, if cooked in a slow cooker, can easily compromise the dish’s texture. Foods best suited for slow cookers are generally tougher cuts of meat and vegetables, particularly for dishes that require extended cooking times like stews and soups. By using a slow cooker correctly, even without exceptional culinary skills, you can serve up dishes with outstanding textures.