Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (9 page)

The older I get, the more I realise I am a Northern European through and through. My heart lies with the solid animal fats, like duck or goose and butter, rather than the olive oil of the Mediterranean. I love sturdy food like sausages and I’ve never met a cabbage I didn’t like. I particularly love sauerkraut (or the French
choucroute
) and this dish is all about its savoury, salty charms. Studded with sausages and soft pork belly, it’s the perfect porky one-pot meal.

Take advantage of the growing Polish grocery sections in the supermarket or take this as your cue to venture to your local Polski Sklep, or Polish shop, for the first time. You’ll be goggle eyed at the selection of cured and smoked sausages.

Despite what it seems from the long recipe list, this is a very simple dish to make. Do try to use the sausages specified. The kabanos are small, thin, dried sausages and the kielbasa is a large, soft smoked sausage, almost like a large frankfurter. If you can’t get either, use some bacon or ham and some frankfurters instead. As long as the dish involves lots of pork with your cabbage, it’s still authentic.

SERVES 6 GENEROUSLY OR 4 WITH LEFTOVERS

600g sauerkraut

400g potatoes

1 large onion, diced

2 bay leaves

4 allspice berries

2 whole cloves

1 teaspoon caraway seeds

1 teaspoon juniper berries (optional)

200g pork belly

2 kabanos sausages

4 frankfurters or 100g smoked kielbasa sausage

250ml water

100ml vermouth

salt and pepper

Remove your sauerkraut from the jar, rinse lightly and leave to drain while you peel the potatoes and chop them into 3cm cubes. Put half the potatoes and the onion into the crock and add about half the sauerkraut. Tuck 1 bay leaf in along with 2 allspice berries and 1 clove. Scatter over half the caraway seeds and juniper berries.

Your pork belly will probably come as two slices. Cut each slice into four pieces and put half of them into the crock with 1 chopped kabanos. Chop the frankfurters or kielbasa into 1cm-thick slices and add half. Season well, bearing in mind that the meat and sauerkraut can be quite salty.

Cover it all with the remaining sauerkraut, onion and potato. Add the other half of the herbs and spices. Put the rest of the meat on top and pour the water and vermouth over it. Choucroute garnie usually uses sweet white wine, so add some if you have any instead of the vermouth. Season with more black pepper.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook it all on low for 8–9 hours. The sauerkraut will soften and the pork belly will become super tender, while the water creates a lovely porky broth.

Serve on plates with a dollop of mustard on the side and maybe a beer to add true Northern European charm.

Most people only seem to eat this kind of poached ham joint at Christmas, getting their piggy fix at lunch throughout the year with sliced versions from packets or the deli counter. I find that kind of sliced ham incredibly expensive for what you get (which is often extra water) and so I do ham or gammon joints all year round.

Poaching the ham in the slow cooker keeps it succulent and tender and easy to slice. Excellent in a sandwich or salad or as part of a meal, you get a lot more oink for your money. It’s delicious simply poached with vegetables, like with the Pease Pudding
here
, but I like to add a little sweet and spice with this apple and ginger version.

SERVES 4–6

6cm piece of fresh ginger

3 allspice berries

1 teaspoon black peppercorns

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 bacon, ham or gammon joint, approximately 750g

500ml apple juice

500ml water

This is the simplest dish to make. Peel and grate the ginger, reserving any juice from it when you do. Put it in the slow-cooker crock with the allspice and black peppercorns.

Rub the ground ginger on the meat and place it on top of the ginger and allspice. Pour in the apple juice and just enough water to cover the meat. Put the lid on the slow cooker and poach on low for 3–4 hours.

Lift the meat out of the slow cooker carefully and eat either hot or cold. I don’t find that bacon or gammon joints are salty enough to need soaking before cooking, but they are salty enough not to need any extra seasoning from me.

The ham will last safely for up 3 days in the fridge if you have more willpower than me and don’t just eat ham sandwiches for every single meal after you’ve cooked this.

Growing up in Northern Ireland, sweet-and-sour pork was something that was usually deep-fried and served dipped into a sauce more orange than many people’s politics. It wasn’t until I moved to Brighton as a student that I realised there were further variations on the theme. My flatmate Carrie made a mean sweet-and-sour pork from scratch and we often ate it for dinner together after a long day in the library. I wish we’d had a slow cooker then. It would have saved a lot of sprinting across a large campus!

SERVES 4

450g pork loin steaks or pork shoulder steaks

1 × 227g tin pineapple chunks, juice reserved

2 tablespoons clear honey

2 tablespoons tomato purée

3 tablespoons tamarind syrup (see
here
)

3 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

1 teaspoon soy sauce

1 onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

1 yellow or orange pepper, diced

100ml water

salt and pepper

Cut the pork steaks into quarters and set them into the slow-cooker crock. Drain the pineapple chunks and put the juice into a bowl. Add the pineapple to the pork.

Mix the honey, tomato purée, tamarind syrup and sweet chilli sauce in with the pineapple juice and the soy sauce to make a lovely glossy orange sauce. Pour this all over the meat and season well.

Add in the chopped vegetables and up to 100ml of water if the pork steaks are less than two-thirds covered in sauce. Don’t add more as you want the sauce to be quite thick. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the pork on low for 8 hours.

The enzymes in the pineapple along with the long slow cooking help make the meat incredibly tender as well as adding the sweetness needed. All this dish needs to make people very happy is a big dish of steamed rice on the side and no essay deadline looming.

I love pigs’ cheeks because they are delicious, inexpensive and comic-sounding. But my soft spot for them comes from them being the thing that took my slow cooker from something I used to something I really love. Since my first batch of pigs’ cheeks, the slow cooker hasn’t been put in the cupboard once.

You might not get the cheeks in every supermarket so, if you see them, snap them up and freeze them if you can. I think freezing them helps tenderise the meat even more. Plus you’ll want to make this again and again. And then again.

SERVES 2 COMFORTABLY

350g pigs’ cheeks, cut into thirds

2 onions, cut into eighths

4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon brown sugar

3 tablespoons soy sauce

½ teaspoon gravy browning

150ml water

pepper

Arrange your meat, onion and garlic evenly in the crock. Try to get the onion pieces to sit side by side with the meat like they’re sitting on the London Underground and don’t dare make eye contact. This allows you to use less water and intensify the soy sauce flavour.

Sprinkle the sugar and pepper over them. Put the soy sauce, gravy browning and water in a jug and pour gently over the meat and onion. I use whatever soy I have in the cupboard, usually whatever was best value in the Chinese supermarket, so any version will work.

Cook on low for 6–7 hours. The cheeks become very tender, but hold their shape more than most meat does in the slow cooker, so you might be tempted to leave them longer. Don’t worry if you do, you really can’t overcook these lovely nuggets of meat.

Serve with brown rice and wilted greens for a simple, but stunning meal.

Ever wondered how Chinese restaurants get their pork belly to taste so rich, but yet be so light at the same time? I knew vaguely that they steamed it and pressed it and all kinds of things that sounded like they would keep me over a hot stove for a long time. Then I got the slow cooker and thought that would help.

Slightly worryingly, it made it so simple and straightforward to make this bowl of steamed pork belly that I’m tempted to make it every single time I see a bit of belly pork at the butcher’s, meaning that my diet could be about 50 per cent pig. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever cooked and it’s well worth the small preparation stage.

SERVES 4, BUT WITH FIGHTING OVER THE LAST SLICE…

500g boneless pork belly in one piece

2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

2 teaspoons Thai fish sauce

2 teaspoons dark soy sauce

You’ll need to start the pork belly the night before you want to eat it. Try and get a piece that is all one section. It should be boneless. Bring a pot of water to the boil and put the pork belly into it. Boil for about 5 minutes. This tenderises the pork. Take it off the heat and out of the water, leaving the water in the pan.

Put the pork belly skin side down in a frying pan over a medium heat. This crisps the skin while rendering the fat so the skin isn’t greasy. Cook the skin for about 5 minutes until golden and blistered. It may spatter, so it might need to be covered to protect your cooker.

Remove the pork belly from the frying pan and return it to the pan of water you cooked it in to start with. Leave it to soak for about 15 minutes before putting it in the fridge overnight. I put mine on a plate with a heavy weight on top to flatten it out again as it curls a bit during the cooking.

Next day, remove the pork from the fridge and cut into slices about the thickness of a pound coin. Layer these slices into a 1lb disposable foil loaf tin with the skin on the base of the tin.

Scatter the sliced garlic, Thai fish sauce and soy sauce over the top of the sliced pork and then cover the top of the loaf tin with some foil. Place the covered loaf tin into the slow-cooker crock and pour boiling water into the crock so it comes about halfway up the side of the loaf tin.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and steam the pork on high for 6 hours or low for 8–9 hours. Carefully remove the loaf tin and unwrap the foil. Your pork will now be meltingly tender slivers of soft, juicy meat.

Serve the pork with steamed rice and leafy greens, such as cabbage, pak choi or spinach, all drizzled with the amazing porky soy juice from the meat that is packed with flavour.

Pork belly has become much easier to get in supermarkets and butchers over the last few years. Slow cooking turns it into something amazing, rendering its natural fat content down to make it smooth, silky soft and very flavoursome. The Chinese have been working wonders with this cut of meat for centuries and I’ve taken inspiration here from our family friend Tony who is a dab hand at the Chinese style of lacquering meat to make it sticky and yet tender at the same time. This is well worth the slight effort.

Chinese five-spice powder has the distinctive taste of star anise, fennel seeds, Sichuan pepper, cinnamon and cloves for a warming, spicy flavour. It is available ready ground from many supermarkets, but if you can’t get it, simply use equal amounts of star anise, fennel, cloves and cinnamon with a pinch of chilli flakes and make your own powder.

SERVES 4 WITH LARGE APPETITES

600g pork belly

3 tablespoons clear honey

2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce

2 tablespoons Chinese five-spice powder

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce

It’s best to have your pork belly in slices for this dish and I prefer mine without the ribs in as it makes it easier to eat. Start preparing the pork belly by blanching it in a pan of boiling water for about 60–90 seconds. This helps break down the fat and makes the meat more tender. Place the blanched meat into the slow-cooker crock and allow it to cool down slightly.

Mix the honey, Thai fish sauce, five-spice, soy and sweet chilli sauces together until they form a thick paste. Pour it all over the pork belly slices and toss them well so that the sticky paste coats the slices evenly on each side. Marinate the pork overnight if you can for maximum flavour.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the pork belly on low for 7–8 hours. The pork will become super soft and the slices will look like they are collapsing and losing their shape as the fat has mingled with the marinade to make a sticky glaze.

Carefully lift the pork out and shred it with two forks. Serve with boiled rice and some wilted greens.

Pork ribs are a really underrated cut of meat and often available very cheaply. They are a great crowd pleaser, especially if you are feeding small children for whom it is more socially acceptable to have a sticky face and hands. These glazed ribs are easier than getting the barbecue out (especially if, like me, you can’t even get a firelighter started) so you can serve them all year round.

I’ve used the Apple Butter from
here
here with all its sweet and spiced charms, but you could substitute the same amount of stewed apple or apple sauce with an extra tablespoon of honey if you don’t have any left.

SERVES 4 AS A MAIN MEAL OR 6 AS A STARTER

75ml Apple Butter (see
here
)

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon smoked paprika

1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder

1kg pork ribs, cut individually

salt and pepper

Mix the apple butter, honey, Worcestershire sauce and spices together in a large bowl. Season the ribs well and then toss them in the apple glaze so they are well coated.

Tip directly into the slow-cooker crock and cook the ribs on low for 7–8 hours. The bits touching the edge of the crock will become crispy and the glaze coats them beautifully. The meat will be so tender it will drop off the bone with no effort. The only challenge is making sure you have quite enough kitchen roll handy…