Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (26 page)

100g pearl barley

100g yellow split peas

750ml water

salt and white pepper

Cut the slices of beef shin (or boiling beef as it tends to be known in Scotland and Northern Ireland) in half and place in the slow-cooker crock.

Add your prepped vegetables. Cut the stalks off the parsley and chop finely and add these too. Reserve the leaves. Sprinkle the Worcestershire sauce and the salt and pepper over it all.

Tip in the barley and the split peas. Neither of these needs to be soaked or pre-cooked before adding them here. Pour the water over it all and put the lid on the slow cooker. Cook the broth on low for 8–9 hours.

The beef shin will create a rich, beefy stock while it flakes apart into tender morsels of meat dispersed evenly throughout the soup. It will all be thick with the peas and barley; you’ll probably be able to stand a spoon up in it. Add a wee bit more water if you like it a looser texture.

Add the chopped flat-leaf parsley leaves through it and serve piping hot. It will warm your cockles in no time.

This is one of the most famous soups in the world with its legend spreading far beyond the coasts and swamps of Louisiana. Packed with chicken, okra and smoked sausage, it can be served very hearty like a stew or slurped up with a spoon, depending on your preference. I like it somewhere in between both, like my friend Richard serves in Kaff Bar in Brixton.

Cajun food from Louisiana has an enduring charm and is based round the ‘trinity’ of celery, onion and green peppers, which are sautéed to form the base of nearly every dish. The addition of garlic lifts it to become the ‘holy trinity’. The use of a roux, where flour and butter are cooked together like the beginning of a white sauce, is very traditional here too. The roux in Cajun food gets cooked for longer to make it dark and toasted and it gives your dishes a real depth.

SERVES 4–6 AND REHEATS WELL

50g butter

50g plain flour

750ml hot chicken stock

1 green pepper, diced

1 onion, diced

2 stalks of celery, diced

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon celery salt (use more celery and salt if you don’t have it)

½ teaspoon black pepper

2 dried red chillies

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 bay leaf

½ bunch of fresh parsley

150g smoked pork sausage

4–6 chicken thighs

150g okra, topped, tailed and cut into 3 pieces

hot sauce, to serve

Start by making your roux. Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and add the flour, beating it together with a whisk to prevent any lumps. Cook the roux for about 10 minutes until browned and nutty smelling. It’s best if you can stir as it cooks as this actually speeds it up.

Once the roux is browned, add about 150ml of the chicken stock, whisking constantly to prevent lumps. Keep adding the stock about 150ml at a time until you have a glossy golden brown sauce. It should be slightly too thick to pour without having to really tip the sauce to one side.

Add the sauce into the slow cooker, making sure you run a spatula round the saucepan to catch it all. Mix in the green pepper, onion, celery and garlic. Stir the celery salt, pepper, dried chillies, oregano and the bay leaf into it. Chop the stalks of the parsley finely and add these too. Slice the smoked sausage into half moons about 2cm thick and add them in, stirring well.

Skin the chicken thighs and remove the bones. Cut each thigh into quarters and add the meat to the crock. Tie the bones together with some string and place them in the crock as well to help add flavour.

Add the okra to the crock. (These soft, velvety pods have a reputation for being slimy, but this is a sign that they are old. Pick firm-feeling pods that aren’t leaking any liquid. You can use fresh or frozen and thawed okra here.)

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the gumbo on low for 6–7 hours until the chicken is soft and tender and the flavours have all infused. Remove the parcel of chicken bones, serve the soup in deep bowls with some hot sauce.

This is my favourite one-pot meal for when I’ve got a batch of chicken stock and a big appetite. These are Caribbean-style dumplings from Trinidad taught to me by my friend Brian. I serve the soup hot-and-sour style and it never fails to warm my stomach and my soul.

SERVES 4

750ml Chicken Stock (see
here
)

250g plain flour

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

500ml water

200g cooked chicken

1 red chilli, chopped

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 teaspoon brown sugar

3cm piece of fresh ginger, finely sliced

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

25g fresh coriander, chopped

25g fresh mint, chopped

salt and white pepper

Put the chicken stock in the slow-cooker crock and heat on high for 1 hour if you are heating it from cold. If you’ve just made it and it’s still hot, simply strain the bones out through a muslin cloth-lined sieve and return to the crock.

Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a bowl with your hand and then add a little water at a time to knead into a soft, but not sticky dough.

Using some extra flour on your work surface, roll the dough out to a 1cm-thick sausage shape and then cut into 5cm lengths.

Put in the slow cooker along with the cooked chicken, red chilli, soy sauce, brown sugar and the fresh ginger. Cook on high for 2 hours.

When you are ready to serve, taste the soup and season it as needed with salt and white pepper. Add the vinegar. Ladle the soup into bowls, making sure you have lots of dumplings, and serve scattered with the coriander and mint.

Note:
If you don’t have very much chicken left, bulk the soup out by sieving two beaten eggs into the hot stock for a Chinese-egg-drop style finish. It’s a quick, economical way to add protein.

I was introduced to this by a Ghanaian friend for whom it was the taste of home. She couldn’t cook, so she challenged me to learn to make it from the internet. I have adapted the original recipe over the years and then adjusted it for the slow cooker. You can serve this thick – like stew over rice – or as a soup.

Very filling and satisfying, you can get away with using very little meat or omitting it completely. I wouldn’t advise making it completely vegetarian though as the anchovies really add depth. West African cooks use dried prawns or crayfish, but these are very expensive here. It is also very good with the fish and I use defrosted fillets of pollock. Ghanaian cooks use a smooth groundnut or peanut paste, but sugar-free peanut butter works extremely well and is very economical.

SERVES 4

250g chicken thighs

150g groundnut paste or peanut butter

1 litre cold water

1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger

1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

2 anchovy fillets, chopped

1 × 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 red pepper, diced

½ butternut squash or 2 sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped

2 medium onions, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 cobs of corn, chopped into 3cm chunks

1 Scotch bonnet pepper (optional)

150g white fish fillets, such as pollock

chopped fresh coriander, to serve

Start by skinning and boning your chicken thighs. Cut the thighs into quarters. Reserve the bones and tie them into a little bundle with some kitchen string. Season the meat and set aside.

Preheat the slow cooker to high with the lid on and once it heats up, put the peanut butter into it and add about a third of the water, stirring until it is smooth and a pourable consistency. It may look at one point as if it is about to split, but don’t worry. It comes back together.

As it does so, add the ginger, paprika, cayenne and the chopped anchovy fillets, stirring them in well. Tip in the chopped tomatoes.

Then add in the pepper, squash, onion, garlic and the chicken and stir to coat. Drop in the little bundle of chicken bones. These will add flavour as the stew cooks. Pour the remaining water in and mix it all well. Don’t be tempted to skimp on the water, the peanut paste thickens and you need more liquid than in most slow-cooker recipes.

Place the corn cob chunks on top of it along with the whole Scotch bonnet, if you are using it. Put the lid on, turn the slow cooker down to low and cook for 6–7 hours.

An hour before you want to eat, lay the pollock fillets on top of the soup, turn the slow cooker back to high and cook for 1 hour. The soup is ready when these are flaking apart. Stir the fish and the corn into the stew and serve in deep bowls scattered with fresh coriander. This is very filling so you will only need a small amount of rice if you are having it as a stew.

Laksa, a popular soup from Malaysia, is one of my favourite pick-me-ups. Something about the fresh clean taste and perfect combo of fat, carbs and protein means it always hits the spot. Plus something about slurping up noodles always makes me feel better about life. Coconut milk can be expensive if you buy Western versions, but international brands are often half the price. You can also buy blocks of creamed coconut cheaply and mix it with water if you can’t get tinned easily.

SERVES 2–4

4 chicken thighs

2 dried chillies

50g cashew nuts

4 cloves of garlic

1 onion, sliced

3cm piece of fresh ginger

1 teaspoon Thai fish sauce (or 3 anchovies)

1 lime, juiced

1 teaspoon sweet paprika

1 teaspoon ground turmeric

1 stalk of lemon grass (optional)

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

1 × 400ml tin coconut milk

200ml water

½ teaspoon brown sugar

4 curry leaves

½ teaspoon black pepper

250g bean sprouts

100g thin noodles (rice vermicelli)

squirt of lime juice, to serve

fresh coriander, to serve

Start by skinning and boning the chicken thighs. (I use kitchen scissors to do this.) Discard the skin, but reserve the bones. Cut each thigh into three pieces and set aside.

Put the chillies, cashews, garlic, sliced onion and fresh ginger into a bowl and blend with a hand blender, or use a pestle and mortar and blend to a purée with the Thai fish sauce, lime juice and a drop or two of water. Add the paprika, turmeric, lemon grass, if using, and coriander seeds and blitz until you have a loose paste.

Rub half of it over the chicken and, if you can, allow to marinate overnight. Otherwise, pop the chicken into the slow-cooker crock along with the chicken bones and pour the coconut milk over it all. Add the water, brown sugar, the curry leaves, black pepper and the remaining paste. Stir well.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the soup on low for 8 hours or high for 6. The chicken will create a rich, creamy stock with the flavoursome paste and become very tender. Add a touch more water if the soup is very thick.

Put the bean sprouts and the thin rice vermicelli noodles into the bottom of each bowl and ladle the steaming hot soup over them, making sure you don’t add the chicken bones or the curry leaves. The hot stock will blanch the noodles and bean sprouts without extra cooking. Serve the soup immediately with a squirt of lime juice and some fresh coriander.

Few vegetables go better together than carrot and parsnip. It wasn’t Sunday lunch at my granny’s house unless there was a tureen of it on the table, all speckled with orange and white and dappled with butter. So imagine my excitement when I discovered that both the carrot and the parsnip love a bit of spice to accompany their sweetness. If you’ve never combined the two vegetables before, this is the way to start.

SERVES 2 AS A MAIN OR 4 AS A STARTER

1 teaspoon cumin seeds

1 teaspoon coriander seeds

½ teaspoon fennel seeds

3 carrots

3 parsnips

½ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

750ml hot vegetable or chicken stock

1 teaspoon Garam Masala (see
here
)

50ml double cream (optional)

salt and pepper

Toast the cumin, coriander and fennel seeds in a dry frying pan until they smell lightly aromatic. Remove from the heat immediately so they don’t burn and grind them lightly using a pestle and mortar.

Peel the carrots and parsnips and cut them into 1cm cubes. Put in the slow-cooker crock along with all the spices except the garam masala, seasoning and the stock and put the lid on.

Cook on low for 7–8 hours or high for 5–6 hours. About 30 minutes before you are ready to serve, sprinkle in the garam masala and replace the lid.

Before serving, purée the soup with a hand blender until it is smooth. Add the cream if you like and serve with a scattering of black pepper.

The Vietnamese national dish, this soup is just the ticket when you feel you’ve overindulged or need fortifying. A rich, deep broth made from meat bones and filled with rice noodles, aromatics and fresh herbs, we’ve started a lovely trend in our house, encouraged by Mister North’s girlfriend Emma, to use the leftover bones and meat from a Sunday lunch or Christmas Day to make it.