Slow Cooker Success

We had our first slow cooked meal on Sunday and it was simply amazing. Slow cooked Jerk chicken with sweet potatoes, carrots, broccoli and stuffing. Quite why it has taken us so long to embrace the slow cooker is beyond me already after just one meal. We will certainly be preparing many more meals in the slow cooker if this last one is anything to go by. So simple to prepare and so simple to cook yet with excellent results. The only thing I did find strange was having to leave it alone all day. I like to be a hands on cook so leaving a dish in the corner all day with the lid on was a strange one on me.

I was up first on Sunday morning so it fell to me to prepare and start Sunday lunch which wasn’t difficult in the least; even the most novice cook can do this one, trust me. I greased the bottom of the cooking pot and put a layer of chopped up sweet potatoes on the bottom, sprinkling some Jerk seasoning over them and tossing them to make sure they were all well coated with oil and seasoning . Next I added the small whole chicken, about 1.25kg, on top of the sweet potatoes, oiling the skin and sprinkling with a good dose of Jerk herbs and spices, salt and pepper, before squeezing over the juice of a lemon, making sure that some of the lemon juice was sprinkled on to the sweet potatoes as well. I placed the squeezed lemon in the chicken’s body cavity for some extra lemony zing to the meat which also worked really well. Then I stuck the cooker on high and sat back with some coffee and the paper and let the cooker do its business whilst I did battle with the crossword and Sudoku. This is so simple it defies belief, after an hour on high the cooker was turned down to low and left to its own devices for about seven hours whilst we went about our daily chores and entertained our guests for the afternoon. An hour and a half before we wanted to eat I added the chopped broccoli and carrots and the stuffing balls, positioning them around the chicken and turned the cooker up to high again for that last blast of heat. The result was a super succulent chicken, cooked to perfection and falling off the bone with tender vegetables and perfect stuffing. This has to be one of the easiest forms of cooking around, plus as everything is cooked in the same pot there isn’t much washing up to do afterwards, excellent.

On the back of this success I have decided that Christmas dinner will be cooked in the slow cooker as well, turkey should be just as good as chicken in theory when cooked this way. I will add a coating of butter to the Turkey breast though as it will have less fat compared to the chicken so this should help to keep it succulent. The slow cooker will take all of the stress out of attempting to cook a three course dinner on board Naughty-Cal, as the main course will pretty much look after itself, leaving just the starter to cook prior to us eating and the dessert to prepare at some time during Christmas morning. Looks like this year’s Christmas dinner will be a doddle and I will get to go to the pub for that Christmas dinner time pint as well. If the weather stays good we might even be able to take the boat out for a Christmas day cruise, something we have as yet been unable to do either due to bad weather or other family commitments.

One other point in favour of the slow cooker and one well worth considering is the lack of condensation created when compared to cooking on the traditional gas hob. There was a noticeable lack of condensation throughout the slow cooking process, something which can only be a good thing onboard a boat during the winter months when condensation can become a major headache unless adequate ventilation is provided.

It is safe to say that we are already very impressed with the slow cooker and this will be the first of many meals cooked onboard Naughty-Cal with this one, both on our home berth and on our travels during the summer months. We also have plans to purchase a second slow cooker for at home so that we can enjoy slow cooked meals at home after work. This could be the start of some great grub discoveries.