Dear Eric: Slow cooker recipes usually give you a choice of using, for example, the low setting for seven to nine hours, or the high setting for 3.5 to 4.5 hours. Is one way better than the other to attain certain results? I am thinking of roasts in particular. Or is it just a matter which time suits me? Grace Stone
Dear Grace: Slow cookers consist of a metal container that has a heating element inside its walls. A removable ceramic pot sits inside the container. When turned on, the heating element heats up the pot and its contents. However, unlike a pot set on a hot burner on the stove, the element doesn’t directly touch the pot, which in turn prevents foods from sticking and burning, even after cooking all day.
As noted in my book, Everyone Can Cook Slow Cooker Meals, as the food warms in the pot, it rises to a food-safe cooking temperature — about 185 F to 280 F, depending on the setting, which on many slow cookers includes low and high.
Logically, the low setting brings the food up to the cooking temperature more slowly than the high setting. The low setting also bubbles and cooks food, whether cubes of meat, vegetables or a pot roast, more gently, helping them to hold together even when quite tender, and even after eight or more hours of cooking.
The high setting is most often used for times when you want the food cooked more quickly — occasions where you don’t have the whole day to let it simmer away or simply need to speed up the process. One hour of cooking on the high setting is equivalent to about two hours on the low setting. That’s why, as Grace noted, a recipe that requires seven to nine hours on the low setting will take only three and a half to four and a half hours on the high setting.
There will also be times when you use both the low and high settings. For example, if you have been cooking food on the low setting and realized near mealtime it won’t be ready, you could turn the slow cooker to the high setting to speed up the cooking.
Another reason you may switch settings is when, for example, a dish takes eight hours to cook on low, but there’s only six hours to go before you plan to serve it. On those occasions you could give the dish a head start by setting the slow cooker to high for two hours, and then turning it to low for four hours.
As Grace noted, in many slow cooker recipes, you’ll often see a range of cooking times given. This is because with so many types, brands, sizes and ages of machines out there, the temperature the food cooks can range from one slow cooker to another. In one slow cooker the food might be ready in six hours, another one seven or eight.
Another reason a dish may take longer to cook is because of how you prepared the ingredients. For example, if you’re asked to cut a piece of beef into two and half centimetre cubes and you make the cubes twice that size, they’ll take much longer to cook and your dish won’t meet its target cooking time.
That’s why in my book I suggest you check the food near or at the end of the first recommended cooking time to see what’s up. If it’s ready, serve it or turn the machine to the warming mode until you are ready to eat. If it’s not, keep on cooking. Don’t be tempted to see how the food is progressing early on in the cooking process. It can take many minutes for the slow cooker to return to the proper cooking temperature, which in turn means the food will take longer to cook.
When testing slow cooker recipes, I’ve not noticed a dramatic difference on how most of them turn out whether I used the low or the high setting. That said, I tend to use the low setting most often because the whole point of using my slow cooker is to allow me to get dinner started early in the day, go out to do a bunch of things and then return home to find dinner is already cooked.
With regards to roasts, why not try your preferred recipe on the low setting one week, and then try it on the high setting the next time. Compare the results and see which one best suited your taste.
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork Sandwiches
This recipe is from book Everyone Can Cook Slow Cooker Meals. I’m not going to say this pork is as good as if it had been cooked over a wood-fired barbecue pit, but it is slow-cooked, very succulent and dripping with barbecue sauce. Serve the sandwiches with pickles and coleslaw, which you can serve alongside or pile onto the meat.
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 8 hours 10 minutes
Makes: 8 sandwiches
1 1/2 cups barbecue sauce
1 1/4 cups lager beer or chicken stock
1/4 cup packed golden brown sugar
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tsp sweet paprika
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
3 lb boneless pork shoulder roast
2 Tbsp olive oil
8 hamburger buns or large crusty rolls, split and warmed
Place the barbecue sauce, beer, brown sugar and vinegar in your slow cooker and whisk to combine. On a wide plate, mix together the paprika, chili powder, cumin and salt. Set the pork on the plate and roll it to coat evenly with the spice mix. Place the oil in a large skillet set over medium-high heat. Add the pork and sear on all sides. Set the pork in the slow cooker, turning it to coat with the sauce. Cover and cook on the low setting for eight hours, or until very tender.
Remove the pork from the sauce and set it in a bowl. Skim off any fat from the surface of the sauce, then cover and keep the sauce warm in the slow cooker. When the pork is cool enough to handle, shred it with two forks. Add the meat to the sauce, cover and heat through for 10 minutes. Pile the pork into the buns and serve.
Eric Akis is the author of the hardcover book Everyone Can Cook Everything. His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
