4
USING
1. Put the prepared ingredients into the cooking pot.
2. Put the cooking pot into the slow cooker then t the lid.
3. Plug the slow cooker into a wall socket.
4. Turn the mode switch to LOW or HIGH as required. Cooking will start.
5. When cooking is nished turn the mode switch to the WARM position. If you want to serve the food
right away, turn the control to OFF and unplug your slow cooker. Don’t use the WARM setting for
longer than 4 hours.
6. Always use oven gloves when handling the lid or cooking pot.
GENERAL
• Thaw frozen food completely before adding it to the cookpot.
• Brown the meat and sauté the vegetables in a pan.
Meat
• When roasting, the juices don’t spit or evaporate, so avour and nutritive value are retained. The size
and shape of the joint, its quality, and the proportion of lean, fat and bone, all aect cooking times.
Experience will soon help you judge these.
• Avoid meat which has a high proportion of fat, or trim the excess fat.
Poultry
• Wash and dry the poultry and season inside and out.
• Brown the skin in its own fat or a little cooking oil, in a large frying pan.
Fish
• To retain avour and texture, sh shouldn’t be cooked for long periods.
• Grease the base of the cookpot with butter or margarine.
• Clean, trim and wash the sh. Dry and place in the cookpot.
• Season, sprinkle with lemon juice, then add hot stock, water or wine.
• Dot butter over the sh, and cook on low (1) for 2-3 hours.
Vegetables
• Quickly cooked vegetables, like frozen peas and sweetcorn, must be thawed, then added half an
hour before the end of cooking.
• Root vegetables, tubers, and bulbs (carrots, potatoes, onions) take much longer to cook than meat,
so cut them to about 5mm thick slices, sticks or dice, and sauté them gently for 2-3 minutes before
adding to the cookpot.
Pulses (beans, peas and lentils)
• You must boil dried beans (e.g. red kidney beans) for at least 10 minutes before adding them to the
slow cooker. They’re poisonous if eaten raw or under-cooked.
• Soak dried peas and beans for 8 hours (or overnight) before cooking, to soften them.
• You don’t need to soak lentils overnight.
• When cooking with rice, use at least 150ml of cooking liquid for each 100g of rice. We’ve found that
“easy-cook” rice gives the best results.
• Pasta gets too soft for slow cooking. If your recipe requires pasta, stir it in 30-40 minutes before the
end of the cooking.
Soup
• Tasty, home-made soup can be left simmering all day or overnight.
• Brown the meat and vegetables in a pan.
• If thickening is required, stir in our or cornour, then gradually add stock.
• Bring to the boil, season to taste, and transfer to the cookpot.
• Don’t add milk till the nal half hour of cooking. Cream or egg yolk may be added just before serving.
