Slow Cooked: 200 exciting, new recipes for your slow cooker (18 page)

1 onion, finely chopped

1 × 400g tin chopped tomatoes

4 tablespoons pomegranate molasses

3 tablespoons tomato purée

2 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons smoked paprika

½ teaspoon ground cloves

2 teaspoons mustard powder

500ml cold water

Put the dried haricot beans into the slow-cooker crock and add the onion and tomatoes.

Measure out the pomegranate molasses into a cup or bowl and add the tomato purée, sugar, paprika, cloves and mustard and stir it all together. This makes it easier to combine with the beans.

Pour this mix into the beans and stir well so that they are as evenly coated as possible. Add the water, put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on high for 7–8 hours.

The beans will swell and plump up and the sauce will thicken and intensify in flavour. It is rich and dark and much more grown-up than the tinned version. The beans reheat well and everyone loves them, no matter what their age.

If you are looking for a really tasty and easy dish, then let me introduce you to these butter beans. Cooking the beans from dried in the slow cooker lets you see exactly what they mean about them being buttery. You’ll find it hard to believe pulses can be this good with so little effort. And if you have leftovers, they make wonderful Stuffed Tomatoes (see
here
).

SERVES 2 AS A MAIN MEAL OR 4 AS A SIDE

200g dried butter beans

1 onion, diced

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

200g chorizo, cubed

1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika

250g cherry tomatoes or 1 × 400g tin plum tomatoes

450ml water

salt and pepper

Put the dried butter beans into the slow-cooker crock, add the onion, garlic and chorizo and combine. Scatter the paprika and tomatoes over it all and add the water.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours. The beans will be so fattened up they are literally bursting out of their skins, the tomatoes will have collapsed into the beans and there will be a thick paprika-infused sauce studded with chorizo. Season well with salt and pepper and serve. This is one-pot food at its simple best.

I just cannot get enough of the beautiful butter bean in the slow cooker. They are as grumpy as I am when woken on a Monday morning in November when they are cooked quickly on the stove — their skins wrinkle as if they are pulling their duvets round them and the flesh inside becomes chalky and dry in protest.

But slow cooked, they relax and soften as much as if they were sitting in the garden on a June afternoon with a long, cool drink and good company. They plump up and become smooth and velvety, allowing you to serve them as a side dish, mashed as an alternative to potatoes or squashed into a heavenly dip with pitta bread. Simple and summery all year round.

SERVES 2–4 (DEPENDING ON WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF PITTA BREAD)

200g dried butter beans

6 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

1 lemon, zested and juiced (if waxed, give it a vigorous scrub under the hot tap first)

650ml water

1 lemon, juiced, to serve

salt and white pepper

Put the dried butter beans in the slow-cooker crock and add in the garlic and rosemary. It really is best to use fresh rosemary here rather than the dried stuff in jars, which tastes thin in comparison. Strip it off the branches and chop the needles finely.

Add the lemon zest and juice of 1 lemon into the beans, then season. I like them with quite a generous hand with the salt and not too much pepper.

Pour the water over it all and put the lid on the slow cooker. Cook on low for 8 hours until the beans are falling apart and creating a thick, beany liquor. Taste and season again if needed. Squeeze the juice of the second lemon over them and serve.

If you want to make a mash to go with lamb, add a tablespoon of olive oil and crush with a potato masher to give a rustic feel rather than a purée.

To make a dip, add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 2 tablespoons of water to begin with and use a hand blender to get a texture that you can scoop onto pitta bread. Add more water if needed. Theoretically it keeps well in the fridge, but it rarely lasts that long.

Whenever anyone hears you are cooking on a budget, they extol the virtue and cheapness of dried pulses. This generally isn’t news to anyone who is eating frugally and ignores the fact that soaking your own pulses requires a certain amount of forethought, a very large saucepan and a fairly endless capacity to eat them as it’s impossible to do small portions.

I have to admit, I’ve rarely bothered with dried pulses despite years of living on a budget. The cost to faff ratio seemed skewed. Then I learned two things: you can cook pulses (
except
kidney beans) from dry in the slow cooker and you can freeze them once cooked. Sold to the lady with the bag of chickpeas in the cupboard.

This recipe makes enough for several meals and you can whip up a batch of hummus that’s much tastier and cheaper than those wee pots in the chiller cabinet. The faff levels are extremely low…

SERVES 4 (MAKES ABOUT 600G COOKED)

200g dried chickpeas

500ml boiling water

Put the dried chickpeas into the slow-cooker crock. Add the boiling water. Don’t add salt as it makes them tough and mealy.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the chickpeas on high for 8 hours. You will have perfect plump chickpeas at the end of it.

You can now use these chickpeas the way you would the tinned ones or simply portion them into bags or containers and freeze until needed.

Note:
One thing I’d caution is to check just how old your chickpeas are before cooking. The older they are, the less likely they are to plump up no matter which way you cook them. If they are older than a year, invest in new ones and check the sell-by-date in the store.

If you use the slow-cooker chickpeas (above), making a batch of this will take less time and effort than queuing up with a small pot of the shop-bought stuff after work.

250g cooked chickpeas

3 tablespoons tahini, mixed with 2 tablespoons water if thick

2 lemons, juiced

2 cloves of garlic, crushed (optional)

60ml olive oil

30ml water

salt and pepper

Put the chickpeas in a bowl. Add the tahini and blend until it’s a dropping consistency.

Add the lemon juice, garlic and oil. Blend or smash until it’s as smooth as possible. Add the water if it’s too stiff. Season after you add the water.

These little balls of chickpeas were my favourite vegetarian snack when I was meat free. I still love a falafel in a pitta bread or wrap after the pub. I’ve eaten many and the very best are light and almost fluffy. Making them in the slow cooker is foolproof for getting this perfect texture and skips the whole deep-frying stage. You can still come home to them from the pub and best of all, there’s no queue in your kitchen, but you get the best falafel you’ll eat this side of Jerusalem.

This recipe uses dried chickpeas you have soaked for 8 hours. They don’t need to be cooked before you make the falafel. Tinned chickpeas aren’t suitable for this recipe.

MAKES ABOUT 25 AND THEY KEEP WELL IN THE FRIDGE

200g dried chickpeas

150g mashed pumpkin or sweet potato

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon red chilli powder

2 tablespoons plain flour

salt and pepper

Soak the chickpeas for around 8 hours in cold water. Drain and rinse the chickpeas well and set aside.

I use leftover roast sweet potatoes or pumpkin here, but if you don’t have any handy, steam them freshly to prevent them from becoming too watery. Squeeze any excess water from the pumpkin or sweet potato.

Put the soaked chickpeas, spices and seasoning in a large bowl. Use a hand blender to blend the chickpeas until they form what looks like a slightly powdery batter. Add the pumpkin and blend again briefly. It will look quite firm.

Add half the flour and mix well. Add the other half and stir until combined. The batter will now be firm and not sticky. Chill it for at least 30 minutes. Line the slow-cooker crock with baking liner or greaseproof paper.

Scoop a teaspoon-sized blob out of the batter with a spoon or your finger and thumb and roll it into a ball. Set each falafel into the lined slow cooker with a little bit of space between them. Once you have one layer in the crock, cover them with more greaseproof paper or baking liner and do a second layer if needed.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the falafel as they are on low for 8 hours or high for 6 hours. They will develop a lovely crisp golden shell that makes a good contrast to the moist inner. I also sometimes cook them in Tomato Sauce (see
here
) to make them more like meatballs. The same cooking times apply.

Until I visited the Northeast of England, I thought pease pudding was something that you heard about in nursery rhymes and as unlikely to be served these days as pies with four and twenty blackbirds. I was wrong. Pease pudding, especially in a stottie or roll, is a way of life up there. And quite right too, because it’s delicious.

Pease pudding is traditionally made with ham. I’m sure you could do a vegetarian version, but it’s such a good excuse to cook a ham or gammon joint outside the Christmas season that I’ve never done it meat free. You can cook the peas alongside the ham in the same stock or use bacon or gammon pieces. So you have no excuses not to try ‘pease pudding hot, pease pudding cold’, without keeping it nine days in the pot.

SERVES 4–6

200g yellow split peas, pinch of bicarbonate of soda

1 onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

2 bay leaves

2 whole cloves

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon white pepper

750g (approx) ham or gammon joint

700-900ml cold water

1 egg, beaten

Soak the split peas overnight in lots of cold water with a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. Next day, drain and rinse them well.

Take a large, clean muslin cloth (found in the baby section of a supermarket) and put the soaked split peas, onion, carrot, bay leaves, cloves, nutmeg, salt and pepper into the cloth. Gather it up so that it makes a purse shape. Give it room to expand and then tie the top with string.

Place the ham joint into the slow-cooker crock and cover with the water. It doesn’t matter if the very top of the ham pokes out a little bit. Dangle the muslin cloth into the water so it is completely submerged. Tie the string round the handle of the slow-cooker lid if you can, to keep it in place.

Put the lid on the slow cooker as snugly as you can and cook on high for 3–4 hours. At this point, check the ham. It should be cooked, but still nicely tender. Lift it out, set aside and continue to cook the pease pudding on high for another 3–4 hours to allow it to soak up the ham stock.

Take the muslin cloth of pease pudding out of the slow cooker and tip into a dish. Remove the bay leaves. Beat the egg through it quickly so the residual heat cooks it. This gives a lovely soft texture to the pudding.

Chop the ham into small chunks and add into the pease pudding before serving. Serve hot with steamed cabbage or spread cold on a stottie.

Note:
If you don’t have a ham joint, use 300g bacon or cooked, cubed gammon. Put the split peas, onion, carrot and the herbs and spices into the slow-cooker crock. Add the cubed ham or gammon and 250ml cold water. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook the pease pudding on high for 6–7 hours. When you are ready to serve the pease pudding, fish out the bay leaves and beat the egg into it to loosen the texture.

My friend Glen and I have been known to frequent a certain popular peri-peri chicken chain where he can indulge his unlimited love of condiments and I can indulge my unlimited love of the bottomless soft drinks before we vibrate home on a mix of chilli and caffeine. We also always order the same dishes as we catch up. A confirmed hater of peas, he rolls his eyes at my love of the ‘macho peas’ they serve there. Or maybe it’s my inability to eat them without having to push them onto my fork with my finger when I think no one is looking?

Here I’ve combined them with the easier to eat feel of the traditional mushy peas. Spiked with chilli and vinegar, everyone will fall in love with these peas. Even Glen.

SERVES 4–6 AS A SIDE DISH

1 box or 250g dried marrowfat peas

½ teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons mint sauce

1 teaspoon vinegar (cider, malt, white or white wine)

1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped

400ml cold water

1 Scotch bonnet pepper, whole

salt and pepper

Soak the marrowfat peas overnight in 850ml boiling water using both the tablets from inside the box. These help tenderise the peas so they soak up the water when cooking and become lovely and creamy. I soak mine directly in the crock.

Once the peas are plumped up, tip them into a colander and rinse well. Place back in the slow-cooker crock and add the sugar, salt and pepper, mint sauce, vinegar and chopped chilli. Pour the 400ml cold water over them. Float the Scotch bonnet pepper in it. Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook on low for 6–7 hours.

When you are ready to eat, remove the whole Scotch bonnet. It will have infused the peas with its fruity flavour and added some extra warmth without being unmanageably hot. Serve the peas with a dash more mint sauce or some fresh mint. I love these with some Brixton Chicken Wings (see
here
) or as a take on the ubiquitous hummus with pitta bread.

This is luxury dal. Invented in the five-star Moti Mahal Hotel in Delhi, its roots are in the dairy-loving Punjab. Based around the same spices and creaminess as the Butter Chicken
here
, this is the dal to eat when you want to treat yourself. You just don’t need to pay five-star prices for its unique slow-cooked texture, but don’t be tempted to rush it. Things this luxurious take time even by slow-cooker standards.