Julia Child believed gourmet eating was all about the process of slow, careful cooking. To Julia I say: nothing good, of course, ever comes easy…unless you own a crock-pot bitch!!
In an era of slow / fast cookers, pressure cookers, air fryers and various other kitchen appliances promising to cook you dinner and treat you right, I postulate there is no contraption so brilliant, nor so useful to the uni student, as the humble crock-pot.
The OG crock-pot was invented in 1941 by Irving Naxon as a nifty way for Orthodox Jews to adhere to religion and make cholent (a wonderful slow-cooked stew) without working over Shabbat. They could pop the ingredients in before sunset on Friday evening and enjoy home-made food throughout the weekend. Though born tragically Christian, I benefit from the ingenuity of my Orthodox cousins every time I come home to a steaming crock-pot dinner. The modern working uni student doesn’t have time to be chained to the kitchen for hours; we have lectures to put off till next Wednesday and Tinder admin to attend to. The big daddy of the kitchen, the ChatGPT of chicken stew if you will: the crock-pot (#notspons) lets you partake in easy, careless cooking that tastes like it took hours. (I mean it did, but you don’t have to hang around). It also lets you get sophisticated: from a range of easy stews to complicated sounding french classics like beef bourguignon, or even upside down pineapple cake!! Whatever you end up choosing, you need only toss in your ingredients in the morning, go about your day and come home to a hot, delicious and flavourful meal. It’s literally the equivalent of those 5 minute spray and walk away commercials!! (again #notspons).
Historian Ruth Shwartz Coven notes that before the stove, we cooked over the fire, so almost every culture has a version of these hearty one-pot meals. This means the crock-pot allows you freedom and diversity in your meals. You can branch out and go crazy, exploring all the cuisines that Uber Eats is surely overcharging you for. For a second-gen brown kid, the crock-pot means making curries that remind me of the homeland without standing in the kitchen and stirring that shit around for legit 2 hours. If you are a fellow curry enthusiast (or even one of the numerous muppets over the years who have informed me they love Indian food, then yap about that colonised ‘mild butter chicken with garlic naan’ bullshit) this one’s for you:
Amanda’s Chicken Curry: (not) exactly like grandma makes it
Ingredients:
-Coconut oil x1 phat tablespoon
-Ginger/ garlic paste (essential to the base of any curry) x2 tablespoons
-Coconut milk (optional)
-Curry powder (if you order lemon/herb at Nandos [side-eye] stick to the mild)
-Turmeric powder x1 tablespoon
-GREEN CHILLIES!! (to taste but minimum 2)
-Salt (Pink Himalayan Rock variety if you bougie)
-Curry leaves x4 (optional)
-Cumin seeds (optional)
-Chopped onions x4 (not optional)
-Tomatoes x1 tin
-Cubed chicken x1 kilo (last you all week babyy)
Instructions:
NONE. Just chuck it all in there dawg. In true grandma fashion, I will not be providing specifics on how much of each thing to add. Eyeball that shit. Ingredients like the coconut milk are purely dependent on how creamy you like your curry, you could forgo it entirely and it would still be delicious (the onions and tomatoes will caramelise into a lovely base). Oil is another thing you could skip, though the coconut oil does add some wonderful fragrance. Salt is to taste, and so is chilli (but is it really curry if it doesn’t make you sweat a little?). I will urge you to go for chicken thighs with the bone IN: it is sure to give you more flavour than plain ol’ chicken breast. Leave your ingredients on the low’n’slow for five hours/ high for 3, get those readings done and enjoy!!
‘UoA Meat club Who?’ Beef Stew
Ingredients:
-Olive oil x2 tablespoons
-Ginger / garlic paste x2 tablespoons
-Diced onions x3
-Tomato paste x3 generous tablespoons
-Cubed Beef x1 kilo (chuck steak works, most packaged meat will have labels alerting you to what’s good for stewing)
-Literally any fucking vegetable you have in the fridge (kale is great bc you can’t taste it)
-Again, turmeric powder x1 tablespoon (it kills germs in your meat and it’s great for you)
-Beef stock x3 cups
-Salt & Pepper (to taste)
-I am once again asking you to please add some green ‘chillies (so good for winter, yess clear them sinuses bestie)
Instructions:
I would like to begin by announcing that anyone who tells you ‘cooking is an exact science’ is a f@cking p*ssy!! It is virtually impossible to fuck up this stew; you can add pretty much anything you’d like and aren’t seeing on the aforementioned list. Chop up some potatoes, carrots, broccoli, silverbeet! For my aromatic lovers, add rosemary, thyme, whatever your delightful little heart desires! Don’t adhere to any rules!! Cut up your meat and vegetables with kitchen scissors while the holy spirit of Gordon Ramsay swears at you from down below (idk where England is geographically). Personally, I’m a fan of adding half of those King’s Minestrone packets: it comes with lots of exciting grains, lentils, etc!! A cautionary note to take it easy on the salt though; the beef stock comes packing. Cook it low and slow for 5 hours, or on high for 3 hours and taste all those flavours singing in anti-vegan chorus from your hearty stew. I recommend eating it from one of them big ass bowls with some good, well-buttered bread. (It’ll make you feel straight off ‘Little House on the Prairie’ or you know, that Kim K pilgrim meme that’s been making the rounds).
Go forth, my little chefs, the world is your crock-pot! Do Craccum proud and make sure you tag us in any crock-pot ventures you partake in!!
“Last night, I experienced something new, an extra-ordinary meal from a singularly unexpected source [the crock-pot]. To say that both the meal and its maker [the crock-pot] have challenged my preconceptions about fine cooking is a gross understatement. They have rocked me to my core. [With the crock-pot] anyone can cook!”
-Anton Ego from Ratatouille after trying these recipes probably.
