Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (16 page)
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Authors: Miss South
SERVES 4 AS A MAIN MEAL
50g romaine lettuce (or kale in winter)
1 Poached Octopus (see
here
)
1 char-grilled Romano pepper from a jar or Confit Peppers (see
here
)
50g black olives, pitted
3 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
150g Polenta Croutons (see
here
)
chopped fresh parsley, to serve
I’m using croutons made from leftover polenta from
here
, but if you don’t have any, simply use some boiled salad potatoes. Rick Stein boils them in the cooking water from the octopus for extra flavour. Simply decant it from the slow cooker to a saucepan and boil the potatoes as normal before draining well.
If you are using the kale, finely shred it and place in a serving bowl. Just rip the lettuce up. Chop the octopus in 3–4cm pieces, including the tentacles, and scatter over the greens. Cut the pepper into strips and halve the olives. Add to the bowl.
Mix the mayonnaise with the olive oil, the crushed garlic and the paprika. It should be loose enough to drizzle over the salad. If it isn’t, add a drop or two of milk to it.
Toss the polenta croutons into the salad. Drizzle with the garlicky dressing, sprinkle with parsley and eat.
I really, really love squid. My last meal would quite definitely involve squid — exactly how, I am not sure because it is so versatile and I love it cooked in so many way so it might have to feature in every course.
Naturally shaped for stuffing, this is one of my favourite ways to serve squid since it combines my two great culinary loves of squid and stuffed food. Each time I make this, the stuffing varies slightly, but as long as it involves something green and leafy, like kale, and breadcrumbs, you can’t go wrong.
SERVES 4
4 squid, cleaned
200g kale, shredded
4 anchovies, chopped
200g fresh breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon capers (optional)
pinch of mace
1 lemon, juiced and zested (if waxed, give it a vigorous scrub under the hot tap first)
300g cherry tomatoes
1 fresh red chilli, chopped, or 1 dried red chilli, whole
400g frozen and thawed or tinned spinach
100ml water or vegetable or fish stock
salt and pepper
This dish is best made with fresh whole squid rather than frozen or baby ones and it’s a great way to bring out the lovely subtle flavour of the seafood. Make sure the squid is clean. Ask your fishmonger to do it or it’s very easy to do yourself. Simply remove the eyes and pull everything out from the inside, including the plasticky quill and the ink sac. Try not to break this as it is genuinely ink and makes a real mess. Wash the squid out well and leave the sacs whole. Take the tentacles off and cut them finely.
Make the stuffing by mixing the kale and anchovies with the breadcrumbs and chopped squid tentacles, along with the capers, if using, and add some salt and pepper and the mace. Add the lemon juice and zest to help make the stuffing easier to handle.
Carefully stuff the squid with spoonfuls of the stuffing mix, taking care not to rip them. Lay them into the slow cooker as you fill each of them. Don’t overfill them. You should be able to pinch the tops shut if need be.
Reserve any leftover stuffing. Tuck the cherry tomatoes in and around the filled squid. Scatter the chopped fresh chilli over it all or find a spot for the dried one. Cover it all with the spinach and season well.
Pour about 100ml water or stock into the slow-cooker crock. This creates just enough steam to cook the squid and keep the spinach moist. The tomatoes will give out liquid too, so don’t be tempted to add more. Sprinkle any leftover stuffing over the top.
Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the squid on high for 1 hour 30 minutes. The squid will become opaque and white and so tender you will have to be careful taking it out of the slow cooker.
Serve the squid with boiled potatoes along with some of the tomatoes and spinach on the side.
Lots of people don’t like squid because when squid is badly cooked, it’s awful. Its delicate texture becomes rubbery and stringy. Deep-frying at the wrong temperature ruins the joys of calamari and leaves people pulling equally rubbery faces of horror. All those people are now making those faces at the thought of slow-cooked squid and I’m here to tell them something that will change their lives. Squid needs cooking at a high temperature for 30 seconds or it needs low temperatures for 30 minutes. It’s the in-between methods that ruin it. I’m doing it low and slow with chorizo and tomato and it will win over anyone.
This dish is best with fresh squid, but you can also use frozen baby squid or squid rings if that’s easier. I’ve also made a version of it with a bag of defrosted seafood mix that was in the freezer for emergency meals and it was lovely.
SERVES 4
1 large squid or 4 small ones, cleaned
100g chorizo, cut into 1cm cubes
3 cloves of garlic, diced
1 onion, finely diced
600g potatoes
1 small bulb fennel
2 teaspoons smoked paprika
2 sprigs of fresh thyme or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 bay leaf
2 teaspoons fennel seeds
1 × 400g tin chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato purée
150ml water
50ml vermouth
fresh flat-leaf parsley, to serve
salt and white pepper
If you’re using fresh squid, it needs to be cleaned, so ask your fishmonger to do it if you can. If not, it’s very easy to do yourself. Simply remove the eyes and pull everything out from the inside, including the plasticky quill and the ink sac. Try not to break this as it is genuinely ink and makes a real mess. Wash the squid out well. If it is very large, take the tentacles off and reserve and cut it into thirds. If it’s quite small or little baby ones, keep them whole with the tentacles on. Set aside until needed.
Put the chorizo in the slow cooker along with the diced garlic and onion. Leave the skins on, but chop the potatoes into 3–4cm cubes and add in with the chorizo and onion. Take the root off the fennel bulb and slice it as finely as you can before adding it into the crock.
Stir the paprika through, adding the thyme and bay leaf. Lightly bash the fennel seeds using a pestle and mortar to release the flavour and scatter them in. Pour the chopped tomatoes into it all along with the tomato purée. Pour in the water and vermouth and season well.
Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 5–6 hours until the tomatoes are reduced and the potatoes are tender. Taste and season again.
Add the squid and put the lid on the slow cooker, making sure it is on low, and cook the squid for 30 minutes. You could also add some fresh spinach at this stage if you like a bit of colour.
Serve the stew in bowls scattered with some flat-leaf parsley. The squid will reduce in size, but be beautifully tender and not at all rubbery. Seafood and chorizo is a beautiful combination that will make you feel like you’re sitting on a Spanish beach relaxing.
If you’ve ever wanted to eat more pulses, then the slow cooker is your secret weapon. It allows you to cook dried pulses without soaking or boiling them first (except red kidney beans, which must still be soaked and boiled first to remove any toxins). This is fantastically useful because otherwise you need to plan your bean dishes several days in advance. It’s also usually cheaper than buying tinned beans and allows you to experiment with a wide variety of pulses.
Beans are usually cooked from scratch without any salt as it toughens their skins, but the best thing about the slow cooker is that if you add your salt as standard, it stops the beans turning into mush and allows them to remain toothsome yet creamy. I’ve fallen in love with beans all over again thanks to the slow cooker.
Certain grains work very well in the slow cooker, but I find most pasta and rice dishes don’t come into their own at all. Macaroni cheese, lasagne and cannelloni are the exceptions to that rule. Use your slow cooker to impress people with your own dried pulses, all while you get on with life!
Black Bean and Squash Stew with Kale and Barley
Rosemary, Garlic and Lemon Butter Beans
Garlic and Herb Lentils with Goat’s Cheese
Buckwheat, Cauliflower and Tahini Salad
This is one of my favourite autumn dishes. It looks and tastes amazing and is as close as I get to the whole superfood idea. Originally constructed out of what I had to hand one night, I realised it was the kind of dish nutritionists would urge you to try. Except they would probably only emphasise the healthiness of it whereas I’m all about the fact that it tastes delicious. Oh, and that it’s super easy to make. That’s my kind of superfood…
Before you panic, I’m not suggesting you cook the kale all day until it reminds you of school dinners. No, instead I’m going to suggest you give it a massage and add it in about 5 minutes before the end. Yup, I’m not joking about the massage. Instead of cooking the life out of kale, you can tenderise it by adding a little olive oil and rubbing it between your palms for a few minutes. It keeps it al dente, but removes the crunchy rabbit-food feel and gives you very soft hands.
Serves 4
200g dried black beans
100g pearl barley
1 medium butternut squash
1 medium onion, finely chopped
2 stalks of celery, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 Parmesan rind (optional)
1 tablespoon cider or wine vinegar
600ml mineral water
200g kale
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper
Pop the beans and the barley in the slow cooker. Peel the squash and cut into 2–3cm cubes. I’ve used a butternut squash, but if you can get something like an onion or Crown Prince squash, you can use them the same way.
Add in the squash along with the onion, celery and garlic. Tuck in the thyme, the oregano and the Parmesan rind, if using (omit the Parmesan rind or use another Italian hard cheese instead to make this dish vegetarian). Sprinkle it all with the vinegar and pour the mineral water all over it. Black beans don’t like hard water so this will stop them from becoming chalky.
Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 7–8 hours. The beans will be soft and the barley will plump up.
Remove the thick centre ribs from the kale and shred as finely as possible. Toss it in a bowl with the olive oil and massage it between your palms until it reduces in size by about half and is an impossibly deep green. This should take about 2 minutes.
Stir through the stew, season to taste and allow to sit for about 2 minutes before serving. I like some yoghurt heaped on top of this and a little chilli doesn’t go amiss either.
I am a big fan of the humble bean, but I think my favourite all-round bean is the beautiful black bean. As black as my beloved eyeliner, they make fantastic stews, soups, enchiladas and even cakes. Hard to find in tins outside areas with South American populations, you can cook up batches of plain ones in the slow cooker and freeze until needed or you can make this delicious Cuban-inspired
frijoles negros
, which everyone will love. Eat them as they are or turn them into a creamy soup.
Many of you will have cooked black beans before and found them to be unpleasantly chalky no matter how long you cook them for. You’ve checked the bag for the use-by-date and simmered them a bit more and yet they still aren’t creamy and buttery and you’ve given up in a huff. The problem is that black beans are very sensitive to hard water, which makes them tough. Cook them in a good mineral water and they’ll be beautifully soft. Works every time, even if you live in a soft water area.
SERVE 4 (AND THEY REHEAT BEAUTIFULLY)
200g dried black beans
1 large onion, finely diced
1 green pepper, finely diced
3 spring onions, finely diced
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
2 teaspoons brown sugar
3 tablespoons vinegar (any except balsamic)
650ml mineral water
salt and pepper