Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker by Miss South Read Free Book Online Page B

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.

SWEET-AND-SOUR PINEAPPLE PORK
    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.

SOY-BRAISED PIGS’ CHEEKS
    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