Americas Test Kitchen - Slow Cooker Revolution

ONE TEST KITCHEN. 30 SLOW COOKERS.

200 AMAZING RECIPES.

BY THE EDITORS AT

PHOTOGRAPHY BY

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY BY

Copyright 2011
by the Editors at Americas Test Kitchen

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

AMERICAS TEST KITCHEN
17 Station Street, Brookline, MA 02445

Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Editors at Americas Test Kitchen

AMERICAS TEST KITCHEN SLOW COOKER REVOLUTION:
One Test Kitchen. 30 Slow Cookers.
200 Amazing Recipes.

1st Edition

E-ISBN-13: 978-1-933615-93-6

E-ISBN-10: 1-933615-93-1

1. Cooking. 1. Title
2. 2011

Manufactured in the United States

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

DISTRIBUTED BY
Americas Test Kitchen
17 Station Street, Brookline, MA 02445

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Jack Bishop

EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Elizabeth Carduff

EXECUTIVE FOOD EDITOR: Julia Collin Davison

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Dan Zuccarello

TEST COOKS: Chris OConnor, Jennifer Lalime, Kate Williams

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT: Alyssa King

DESIGN DIRECTOR: Amy Klee

ART DIRECTOR: Greg Galvan

DESIGNER: Beverly Hsu

PHOTOGRAPHY: Keller + Keller and Carl Tremblay

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER: Daniel J. van Ackere

FOOD STYLING: Mary Jane Sawyer, Marie Piraino

PRODUCTION DIRECTOR: Guy Rochford

SENIOR PRODUCTION MANAGER/E-BOOK PRODUCTION EDITOR: Jessica Quirk

SENIOR PROJECT MANAGER: Alice Carpenter

PRODUCTION AND TRAFFIC COORDINATOR: Kate Hux

WORKFLOW AND IMAGING MANAGER: Andrew Mannone

PRODUCTION AND IMAGING SPECIALISTS: Judy Blomquist, Heather Dube, Lauren Pettapiece

COPYEDITOR: Cheryl Redmond

PROOFREADER: Debra Hudak

INDEXER: Elizabeth Parson

PICTURED ON FRONT COVER:

Contents

by Christopher Kimball

Preface

The promise of the microwave was universal in its application. One could use it for reheating leftovers, to be sure, but one was told that it was also a lovely timesaving way to make gourmet meals including meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, and desserts. And then there was a raft of pressure cooker cookbooks that offered similar promisesI know since I actually cooked a cheesecake in one! (Very hard to get it out as you can imagine.) And, of course, bread machines became all the rage and the instruction books came with all sorts of other recipes for jams, jellies, and the like. As one of my Vermont neighbors said about a bagel recipe using a bread machine, Thats going to make one really BIG bagel!

So here we are again, poised to offer you the same line about the slow cooker. After all, we call this work Slow Cooker Revolution, a title that promises a great deal from a test kitchen that we hope you trust. So, lets get to the bottom line: Do we deliver?

Lets start at the beginning. To do the testing, we had to purchase two dozen slow cookers and had to get one entire wall of the test kitchen rewired to accommodate them. And this was by far our most complicated project to date since testing one version of one recipe lasted all day or overnight. But, in the end, we completely rethought this modest home appliance and transformed it from an appliance of convenience to one of almost magical transformation.

The first lesson was that most slow-cooker recipes are mediocre at best because, most of the time, one cannot simply dump a bunch of ingredients into a slow cooker and walk away. One needs to develop flavor using a host of mostly new and interesting techniques contained in this book. Aromatics (onions, garlic, and the like) were often microwaved first with spices and tomato paste to add flavor. The microwave was also helpful to parcook many hearty vegetables that would otherwise not have become tender. A quick run under a broiler to finish a slow-cooker dish was well worth the additional effort to produce a perfect finishing touch, a glaze on a meatloaf, for example. Soy sauce and tomato paste were secret weapons for building flavor in many of the recipes in this book. Often, it was best to brown meat before putting it in the slow cooker but we did find that many recipes could do without, as with our .

In addition, we found that the cut of meat made a big difference, either by reducing the amount of prep work or by adding additional flavor. Foil packets were a huge discovery, used to ensure that vegetables did not turn to mush during the long cooking times or to slow down the cooking of chicken. Foil slings made getting dishes like meatloaf or lasagna out of the slow cooker a whole lot easier. (Yes, the lasagna on the front cover of this book was really made in a slow cooker.) When using ground meat, we found that a panade (bread mashed with milk) was essential to keep the meat tender during cooking. Hundreds of hours of testing proved that chicken should never be cooked on high or for more than six hours on low. Pasta, other than lasagna, should be added raw to the slow cooker and cooked on high. Certain convenience products made the cut, including frozen onions, garlic powder, condensed cheese soup, frozen potato wedges, and store-bought pesto, to name a few.

We even came up with a table of contents that goes way beyond soups and stews. We also offer braises, barbecue, eggs and brunch, casseroles, desserts, and basics. One chapter is even titled and includes recipes for burritos, tostadas, and Mexican lasagna. (Easy slow-cooker fillings make these recipes a snap to make.)

We also figured out how to make risotto, polenta, poultry stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, and lots of other side dishes. We even invented a recipe that cooks a 7-pound turkey breast in the slow cooker with its own rich gravy. Or try .

Now I dont need 15 new things to do with my food processor, stand mixer, or ice cream machine. I dont need a tomato slicer, an electric pizza oven, or an electric corkscrew (I admit to having a short fling with one of the latter). Ive even given up on my pressure cooker, although it does many things very well indeed. I do love my slow cooker because it does so many things well (okay, you need to purchase this book and use it to find out how!) but most of all, it means that dinner is done ahead of time, before I go to work or head outside for the day in the summer. I love that it makes me think ahead so when evening comes I have little to do but enjoy a glass of wine and good company.

With Slow Cooker Revolution, I can look forward to better and more interesting meals as well. We are not promising the world but we do promise that these recipes work and that they are a lot tastier than other slow-cooker recipes you may have come across. This may be a small revolution, but a revolution nonetheless. Now you can go out and storm the Bastille and still have dinner waiting when you get home!

CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL

Founder and Editor, Cooks Illustrated and Cooks Country

Host, Americas Test Kitchen and Cooks Country from Americas Test Kitchen