I was given a slow cooker for Christmas, but haven’t used it yet – any advice for a complete novice?
Slow cookers aren’t exactly sexy, but what they lack in aesthetics, they more than make up for in meal prepping and problem-solving. Simply chuck everything in there, turn it on and a few hours later dinner is effortlessly served. No fuss, just delicious meals.
But there are a few basic slow cooker rules that you need to abide by. First, the liquid: unlike the oven or hob, a slow cooker doesn’t lose as much liquid through evaporation, so even if a dish looks as if it’s not saucy enough, trust me, it very probably is, in which case adding a load of extra stock or water will just leave you with soup, which is ideal only if you’re actually making soup. You just have to learn to trust the process.
