Make It Fast, Cook It Slow (33 page)

KOREAN RIBS

serves
4

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 6-quart or larger slow cooker. Put the ribs into the crock. Add the brown sugar, soy sauce, water, and the whole jalapeños (don’t cut them! leave them whole!).

Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, flipping once. If you are out of the house all day, flip when you get home so the other side of the ribs gets saturated while you change your clothes and set the table. Serve with rice and vegetables.

The Verdict

Oh. Em. Gee. These are the best ribs in the history of the universe. I got the recipe from Stefania Pomponi Butler, who writes the CityMama blog. I’ve made them a handful of times now, the meat is tender, and the sauce just cannot be beat. If you feel brave, you can try eating the cooked jalapeños. Otherwise, feel free to toss. Serve with rice and steamed vegetables.

LAMB VINDALOO

serves
6

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 6-quart slow cooker. Trim the excess fat from the lamb, and cut the meat into 1-inch chunks, or use lamb stew meat. Put into a ziplock freezer bag with the onion, garlic, and dry spices. Close bag tightly and shake to coat lamb with the spices. Refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, dump the marinated meat into the cooker, and add the apple cider vinegar, chopped potatoes (I didn’t peel), and canned tomatoes. Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours. Serve with rice and corn tortillas or naan. This freezes well, and the flavors are even more pronounced in the leftovers.

LEMON CHICKEN

serves
4

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. I hate precooking food before putting it into the slow cooker, but this is one of those times when it’s a good idea. The browning will provide a bit of texture to the outside of the chicken pieces not achieved through slow cooking alone. Dredge the chicken pieces in flour and dump excess. Brown the chicken on the stovetop in a bit of olive oil. There’s no need to fully cook, just get a bit of crust on the outside of the chicken. Place the chicken into the stoneware. Add the other ingredients, and toss gently to coat with sauce. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 3 to 4 hours. Serve over white rice.

The Verdict

This completely satisfied my family’s Chinese takeout cravings. It’s a marvelous dish. I’d suggest adding a pinch of red pepper flakes to the grown-up servings for a bit of a kick. The kids ate a ton of this, and asked for more. You can make an orange chicken version by using frozen orange juice concentrate instead of lemonade.

LETTUCE WRAPS

serves
8

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. Chop the chicken into teeny tiny chunks, and put into the slow cooker. Add the onion, garlic, and water chestnuts, if using. Mix in the liquid ingredients and spices. Cover and cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for 3 to 4 hours. Serve in lettuce leaves with plum sauce. For a gluten-free plum sauce recipe.

The Verdict

I’ve been told that these taste remarkably similar to the variety offered at P.F. Chang’s. We served them to company, and all the grown-ups thoroughly enjoyed their servings. The kids were all too busy running around like wild turkeys to stop and have a taste.

MONGOLIAN BEEF

serves
4

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. There are a lot of ingredients listed because I didn’t want to use a bottled hoisin sauce. Slice the meat into thin strips and toss in a ziplock freezer bag with the cornstarch. Set aside. Add all liquids and dry spices, brown sugar, and peanut butter to your slow cooker, and mix well. Add the garlic and three of the sliced green onions; reserve 1 green onion for garnish. If you are using fresh onion, add that now, too. Put the meat into the crock, and toss gently to coat.

Cover and cook on low for 4 to 6 hours. Flank steak is thin and has very little fat, and will cook quickly. There isn’t a lot of liquid in this dish, so if your cooker tends to cook hot, please check after 3 hours. The meat is done when it is no longer pink and has reached the desired tenderness. Serve over steamed or Fried Rice (see slow-cooked version), and garnish with the sliced green onion.

The Verdict

Delicious. This is so good—before this challenge I would not have attempted to make something so “complicated” in a slow cooker. But really, the only complicated thing was figuring out what flavors would work and assembling the ingredients—the actual cooking and food preparation was a snap, and the kitchen was clean and mopped by 12:00 noon. This is much better for your wallets than delivery or take-out, and much,
much
less greasy. It’s also gluten-free!

PEKING DUCK

serves
6

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 6-quart slow cooker, and insert a cooking rack of some sort in the bottom of the stoneware. I used a steamer rack that came with a rice cooker. Lay the green onions on top of the rack. Skin the duck the best you can, and remove the neck and giblets. Stuff the ginger inside the cavity, along with the star anise. In a small bowl, combine the dry spices. Rub all over the bird, inside and out. Place the duck inside your cooker, breast-side up. Drizzle with the soy sauce and honey. Cover and cook on high for 4 hours. Serve with rice and plum sauce (see Note).

Note:
I made an easy plum sauce by combining: ? cup plum jam; 1 tablespoon gluten-free soy sauce; 1 tablespoon sugar; and 1 teaspoon garlic powder.

PHILLY CHEESESTEAK

serves
4

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 4-quart slow cooker. Put the sliced meat into the stoneware, and top with the bell peppers and onion. Toss the meat and vegetables with the white wine and Worcestershire sauce. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4 hours. Serve on rolls with slices of cheese. If desired, bake open sandwiches on a baking sheet in the oven at 400°F for 12 to 15 minutes, or until cheese is melty.

The Verdict

I’ve never been to Philadelphia, which means I’ve never had an authentic cheesesteak. I’ve ordered them in restaurants on numerous occasions and each time, I seem to get a different variation. I made this recipe up with stuff we had around the house, and we all really enjoyed them. I made the rolls out of a box of gluten-free sandwich bread mix.

PHO

serves
6

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 6-quart slow cooker. Pour the broth into the stoneware. Add the meat, green onions, ginger, fish sauce, and all the spices and salt. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4 to 6 hours. It’s done when the meat is fully cooked and tender. Add the entire package of rice noodles to the slow cooker 15 minutes before serving, pushing the noodles down with a wooden spoon. Cover and cook on high until the noodles are soft and translucent. Ladle into bowls, and serve with optional garnishes on the side, to add at the table.

The Verdict

This has a very nice mellow flavor. I loved the hint of anise (tastes like black licorice) and the cinnamon. If using a homemade stock, you’ll need to add salt to taste. Pho is pronounced “fuh,” but that didn’t stop the “Fee-fi-fo-fum” jokes around the dinner table.

TAMALES

makes approximately
20

The Ingredients

The Directions

Use a 6-quart oval slow cooker. Combine the chicken with the onion, garlic, green chiles, cumin, salt, and drained corn in your stoneware. Cook on low for 6 hours, or on high for about 4 hours. The onions need to be translucent before going into the tamales. If you don’t have time for this step, skip the garlic and onion, and combine the chicken with the other ingredients in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

Soften the corn husks by soaking them in very hot water until they are pliable. To make the masa, combine the dough ingredients in a large bowl, and beat on medium to high speed until the dough is spongy. Check the dough by dropping a little ball of it into a glass of water. It should float. If it doesn’t, continue to beat the dough.

Take a piece of masa dough a bit larger than a golf ball in size, and spread it into a wet corn husk. The dough should be about ¼ inch thick—you do not want to see the corn husk through the dough. Add a bit of filling, and some cheese. Fold the corn husk over to join the edges of the masa. If you need to add more dough, do so—no filling should peek through. Fold all corn husk edges into the center and place into the bottom of an empty 6-quart slow cooker, seam-side down. Repeat until you run out of filling, dough, or corn husks.

When finished, put the lid on and cook on high for 4 to 6 hours, or until a tester tamale looks and tastes done. The tamales on the edges will cook a bit faster. Once your tester looks good (I used the same one, and kept rewrapping it and adding it back when it wasn’t ready), unplug the slow cooker and keep the lid off. Don’t unwrap any others until they’ve set for about 15 minutes. My tamales were cooked at 6 hours, but I began checking every 45 minutes at 4 hours.

The Verdict

I was thrilled that these worked so well! They are definitely labor-intensive, but pack an awfully impressive presentation. I brought them to my daughter’s second grade class, and the children ate them after reading
Too Many Tamales
by Gary Soto and Ed Martinez. Fifteen of the eighteen kids enjoyed them, and the other three were polite with their “no thank-you”s.