Slow Cooker Week, Day 4: From the Test Kitchen

Posted by Caroline Wright

One challenge we face as food editors -- and such excited ones, at that -- is sometimes we're unable to publish all of the recipes we wish we could pass along to you because of space in our magazine. I definitely found this to be the case when putting together these posts for Slow Cooker Week. So, I thought I would take one of our favorite traditional oven-braised recipes and show you how to adapt it for the slow cooker. Let's take a little peek at the process that goes into slow-cooker development in the Everyday Food test kitchen.

Original Recipe: Braised Short Ribs, as published in our December 2007 issue.

Testing Process
First try: I tried to simply combine the ingredients as listed in the recipe (without browning the meat beforehand) in the slow cooker. I quickly determined that there would be far too much liquid and a bit too much meat for our 5-quart slow cooker. I took some notes -- educated guesses, really -- on which liquids to reduce to retain the original flavors and sauciness of the recipe. I cooked what I already had in the slow cooker and learned that the meat would take longer than I had expected at about 5 hours on the high setting.

Second try: To lessen the liquid, I took out the chicken broth, reduced the wine to 1/2 cup, and switched to a smaller can (14 1/2 ounces) of tomatoes. Since, during the test before, I learned that there was too much volume in the slow cooker, I took out 1 pound of the short ribs, and reduced the carrots to 3 and onion to 1 (and kept the thyme the same). With these changes, the slow cooker was filled to the correct volume. Again, I cooked the short ribs on the high setting for 5 hours.

Third try: For the first and second runs of this recipe, I maintained the amount of flour used in the original (1/4 cup), but the sauce wasn't as thick as I wanted it to be because the short ribs were rendering too much fat in the slow cooker. So, I decided to brown the short ribs in a skillet before putting them in the slow cooker (and discard the resulting fat), and keep all of the other variables the same as the second try.

You know what they say about that third time; the results certainly charmed our editors. Drumroll, please!

Slow-Cooker Short Ribs

Ingredients
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Coarse salt and ground pepper
3 pounds bone-in beef short ribs (about 12 pieces)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
3 carrots, cut into large chunks
1 medium onion, quartered
4 sprigs thyme
1/2 cup dry red wine (I tested with Merlot)
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) whole peeled tomatoes in puree (diced tomatoes worked, too)

Directions
1. Place flour in a medium bowl; season with salt and pepper. Toss ribs in flour mixture until well coated; reserve excess.

2. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. Cook ribs in two batches, turning until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes per batch; transfer to slow cooker. Sprinkle ribs with reserved flour.

3. Add carrots, onion, and thyme to slow cooker; pour red wine and tomatoes over vegetables. Cover and cook on high until beef is fork tender and falling from the bone, 5 to 6 hours; stir before serving.

Have you adapted any of your own recipes for the slow cooker? Send it to us at readerrecipes@marthastewart.com. We'd love to use it in our magazine as a reader recipe!

This post is part of our "Slow Cooker Week" series. See Day 1: Slow Cooker Basics, Day 2: Big Batch Stews, Day 3: Braised Meat and Day 5: Slow-Cooker Entertaining. 

 

Comments

[Catherine]

I was excited about your "slow-cooker week" posts because we use ours all the time, but I have to say that I am disappointed so far. There are a lot of things that you can cook in a slow-cooker that don't involve meat. I plug our crockpot in every Sunday morning to make a different type of vegetable stew. I also just cooked and canned apple butter made in the crockpot. I enjoy "Martha's Recipes" very much - which is why I am subscribed to this blog on my Google Reader - but I'm generally disappointed with the lack of good vegetarian main dishes overall. Great side dishes, but not enough focus on non-meat "alternatives."

[Caroline Wright]

Hi Catherine,

I actually totally agree with you! There is so much I love to cook in the slow cooker, but I was definitely bound by our archived content to compile a week of slow-cooker posts. We try to consider vegetarian options regularly in our magazine, but we are looking to expand our vegetarian content, and the slow cooker would be a great place to expand our efforts.

Do you have your vegetarian slow-cooker recipes posted on the web? I would love to write a post and call those out so our readers can benefit from them!

Cheers, Caroline