The Great American Slow Cooker Book (78 page)
Read The Great American Slow Cooker Book Online
Authors: Bruce Weinstein
5
Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6 hours, or until the meat is fork-tender and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into a couple of the pieces without touching bone registers 165°F. Serve heaping spoonfuls in big bowls.
TESTERS’ NOTES
•
Before chopping the prosciutto, oil a knife or give it a spritz with nonstick spray to make the job easier.
•
The fried prosciutto should be crisp, not only for the more pronounced taste but also to render out some fat.
INGREDIENTS EXPLAINED
A capon is a gelded rooster. These birds pick up extra fat and are thick around the middle. You get a meaty fowl that’s larger than a chicken but not as large as a turkey—and with a taste that’s a cross between the two.
braised with lemon and red currant jelly
A LITTLE
•
PREP TIME:
30 MINUTES
•
COOK TIME:
4 HOURS/6 HOURS
•
KEEPS ON WARM:
1 HOUR
•
SERVES:
4 TO 9
2- TO 3½-QUART
1 tblsp unsalted butter
2 pounds mixed capon pieces, skin on
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
2 tblsp red currant jelly
¾ cup low-sodium chicken broth
2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 4-inch rosemary sprigs
4- TO 5½-QUART
2 tblsp unsalted butter
4 pounds mixed capon pieces, skin on
2 medium yellow onion, chopped
½ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup red currant jelly
1½ cups low-sodium chicken broth
4 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 4-inch rosemary sprigs
6- TO 8-QUART
3 tblsp unsalted butter
6 pounds mixed capon pieces, skin on
2 large yellow onion, chopped
¾ cup fresh lemon juice
6 tblsp red currant jelly
2¼ cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 tblsp finely grated lemon zest
1½ tsp salt
1¼ tsp ground black pepper
3 4-inch rosemary sprigs
1
Melt the butter in a large skillet set over medium heat. Add a few of the capon pieces, as many as will fit without any sign of crowding. Cook, turning once, until well browned, 6 to 7 minutes. Transfer the pieces to the slow cooker and continue browning more as needed.
2
Add the onion to the skillet, still set over the heat. Cook, stirring often, until translucent, between 3 and 6 minutes, depending on the side of the batch.
3
Stir the lemon juice and red currant jelly into the onion; as the mixture comes to a boil, scrape up any browned bits in the skillet. Pour and scrape the contents of the skillet into the slow cooker.
4
Pour the broth over everything. Sprinkle the lemon zest, salt, and pepper over the ingredients. Tuck the rosemary sprigs into the sauce.
5
Cover and cook on high for 4 hours or on low for 6 hours, or until the meat is falling-off-the-bone tender and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into one or two pieces without touching bone registers 165°F. Use tongs to transfer the capon pieces to serving bowls, discard the rosemary sprigs, skim the sauce for surface fat, and dish up the vegetables and sauce around the capon pieces.
TESTERS’ NOTES
•
There’s quite a bit of lemon juice here. We wanted to keep this a true sweet-and-
sour
recipe, not one of those preparations where the sour is no more than a mere wish in the name.
•
For the best overall texture and flavor, grate the lemon zest with a microplane, taking just the top yellow bits without scraping down into the white pith.
Serve It Up!
Try this with a creamy rice salad on the side. Mix cooked long-grain white rice with chopped and seeded cucumber and apple, as well as a little minced red onion and some grated carrot. Dress with plain yogurt, a little sugar, and some salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes.
roasted over sauerkraut and potatoes
NOT MUCH
•
PREP TIME:
20 MINUTES
•
COOK TIME:
5½ TO 6 HOURS
•
KEEPS ON WARM:
2 HOURS
•
SERVES:
6 TO 8
6- TO 8-QUART
4 ounces thinly sliced bacon
4 cups sauerkraut, squeezed of excess moisture
3 cups (about 1 pound) chopped red-skinned potatoes
¼ cup chopped red onion
½ tblsp caraway seeds
1 tsp dried dill
1 tblsp mild paprika
1 tsp onion powder
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground black pepper
7 pounds capon, skin on, giblets and neck removed
1
Fry the bacon in a skillet over medium heat until brown and crisp. Transfer a paper towel–lined plate to drain for a few minutes, then crumble the pieces into the slow cooker.
2
Mix in the sauerkraut, potatoes, onion, caraway seeds, and dill. Stir well and form an even yet not compact layer.
3
Mix the paprika, onion powder, salt, and pepper in a small bowl; spread and pat this mixture onto the capon. Set the capon in the slow cooker, pushing it down into the vegetables.
4
Cover and cook on high for 5½ to 6 hours, until the meat is tender at the bone and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh without touching bone registers 165°F. Transfer the bird to a cutting board; let stand for 10 minutes. Carve and serve with the sauerkraut mixture on the side.
TESTERS’ NOTES
•
Here’s a German-inspired preparation for a capon. The bird is fairly meaty and the flavor is more pronounced than that of a standard chicken, so these bold tastes will melt into a meal that needs a glass or two of dark beer.
•
For the best taste, look for refrigerated sauerkraut in the deli case at your supermarket.
Quick, healthy, and flavorful—that’s the skinny on fish. Then there’s the bad news: the ocean’s fish population is being depleted as overfishing booms; chemical contaminants are tainting whole species as governments do nothing. It sounds dire. It
is
dire. But the bad news is really the good news: it forces us to make better fish-buying decisions at the supermarket, which then allow us to make healthier meals in the slow cooker. No, you can’t approach fish with a know-nothing smugness. The sustainability of fish is an ongoing and difficult discussion. There are a host of websites dedicated to the subject, perhaps none better than that by the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which has a phone app to help you make good decisions right in the supermarket (or at a restaurant). And you should be informed. When you are, you’ll realize that this whole category—from tilapia to shrimp, orange roughy to scallops, tuna to clams—needn’t inspire fear.
There was a time when supermarkets slapped fish fillets onto Styrofoam platters, wrapped them in cellophane, and put them at the end of the meat case. These days, even small supermarkets have dedicated fish counters. Chances are, between your work and your home, there’s a supermarket with a decent selection. If not, consider an Asian market you might find in your journeys. The array will be astounding.
Some of the best fish and shellfish is found frozen. Indeed, much of what gets sold in your supermarket has been defrosted in the back. You might as well avoid the markup and buy the frozen fillets or scallops. When you’re planning a dinner, place as much as you need in a bowl in the fridge, leave it to thaw until the next day, and you’ll be able to whip up tasty fare with your slow cooker.
If you are intent on buying fresh fish or shellfish, you’ll need to pick it up on your way home. Fish should be cooked the same day you buy it—or maybe the next day, but no later. Store what you bought in the fridge, but don’t expect it to last very long.
And let’s also be clear about the leftovers. Short ribs can easily be reheated for a quick meal. But to reheat a fish casserole or a shellfish stew? Not so easy. Fish doesn’t linger well, so you’ll want to eat it all the night you make it. If you’re going to get serious about fish, you might want to buy a smaller slow cooker. Sure, these recipes are scaled up for the big models as well, but you might not be ready to eat 6 pounds of mussels in a sitting. (Then again, a mussels party, complete with a batch of homemade french fries, might be the perfect solution.)
In the end, we hope you’ll get hooked on fish and shellfish done in your slow cooker. True, few of these recipes are all-day affairs. They’re probably best for Sundays, when you can put something into the slow cooker in the afternoon and have it for dinner a few hours later. But they’ll also provide some of the lightest and brightest fare in this book. There’s no bad news there.
Slow cooker fish? Isn’t that an oxymoron? After all, fish fillets rank among the world’s best quick-cookers; many are done in under 10 minutes. So why use a slow cooker?
Because you need a sauce. Fish off of a baking tray or out of a frying pan is notoriously dull, nothing more than a dab of this herb or a dash of that condiment to make it palatable. Here’s where a slow cooker helps out. You can build a deep, rich sauce in the cooker, then put in the fish fillets to poach for a few minutes. Since most sauces take time to build their layers of flavor, you might as well hand the job over to the slow cooker. When you come home from work, you can slip the fish into that sauce and have dinner ready almost before you can pour the first glass of wine.
However, there are a couple of problems lurking around the corner. The availability of any one type of fish in your supermarket isn’t guaranteed. Because of production quotas, shipping traffic, and routine commodity auctions among suppliers, no one can ever be sure there will be red snapper fillets (or sole or tilapia, or what have you) lying on the ice at the fish counter on any given day.
To solve that problem, we’ve designed many of these recipes to be quite flexible. We’ve got a whole set designed to work with any number of thin fish fillets—anything from perch to flounder to rockfish. While there are subtle differences among the flavors of these fish, the various sauces we’ve created should smooth out any rough spots. And the same goes for thick fish fillets: haddock, pollock, halibut, cod, and the rest. We’ve crafted a second set of recipes to work with these. You can pick a recipe and walk into the supermarket, confident that you’ll find what you need among the many possibilities there.
About two-thirds of the way through this section of the book, we get into some recipes for specific types of fish: salmon, tuna, and swordfish most prominently, but also monkfish and black cod, available more sporadically. We felt that these fish stand apart from the watery herd: they have such a pronounced flavor and textural profile that they warrant their own creations.
All that said, there’s one last problem—and it’s fully yours to solve when you’re standing at the fish counter. How do you select a fresh fish fillet? Here are the four clues:
•
The flesh should be firm with no desiccated bits where the meat is pulling into distinct planes or where there are withered bits at the edges.
•
There should be no milky liquid on its surface, the first sign of rot.
•
There should be no opalescent sheen, a sign that the fillet is beyond its prime.
•
Most importantly, the fillet should have no fishy odor but rather a clean, bracing smell like ocean spray on a early spring morning at high tide.
Armed with that knowledge, you’re now ready to step away from the country-style pork ribs or skinless chicken thighs and cook some fish in your slow cooker.
with zucchini and olives
NOT MUCH
•
PREP TIME:
20 MINUTES
•
COOK TIME:
2 HOURS 20 MINUTES (AT MOST)
•
KEEPS ON WARM:
1 HOUR THROUGH STEP 1
•
SERVES:
2 TO 8
2- TO 3½-QUART
1 cup (about 1 medium) shredded zucchini, squeezed to remove moisture
¼ cup low-sodium vegetable broth
1½ tblsp minced shallot
1½ tblsp sliced pitted black olives
½ tblsp minced fresh dill fronds
½ tblsp olive oil
½ tblsp fresh lemon juice
⅛ tsp salt
⅛ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 pound, cut into 2 or 3 pieces skinless thin white-fleshed fish fillets, fresh or frozen, thawed
4- TO 5½-QUART
2 cups (about 2 medium) shredded zucchini, squeezed to remove moisture
½ cup low-sodium vegetable broth
3 tblsp minced shallot
3 tblsp sliced pitted black olives
1 tblsp minced fresh dill fronds
1 tblsp olive oil
1 tblsp fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1¾ pounds, cut into 4 or 5 pieces skinless thin white-fleshed fish fillets, fresh or frozen, thawed
6- TO 8-QUART
3½ cups (about 2 large) shredded zucchini, squeezed to remove moisture
1 cup low-sodium vegetable broth
⅓ cup minced shallot
⅓ cup sliced pitted black olives
1½ tblsp minced fresh dill fronds
1½ tblsp olive oil
1½ tblsp fresh lemon juice
¾ tsp salt
¾ tsp freshly ground black pepper
3 pounds, cut into 7 or 8 pieces skinless thin white-fleshed fish fillets, fresh or frozen, thawed
1
Stir the zucchini, broth, shallot, olives, dill, olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper in the slow cooker. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours, or until the mixture is bubbling and the vegetables have begun to get tender.