Crunchy root veg in slow cooker

badgermonkey

I am so jealous of all those people who "just bung things in" to their slow cooker and get perfect food! I put diced (quite small) carrots, potatoes, swede and parsnips into my sc at 7am, along with boiling chicken stock and leftover roast chicken, put it on low, and opened the lid at 4.30pm to find...crunchy veg in boiling stock. Yum. An hour on high made no difference so I've had to turf it all into a pan to cook on the hob.

I usually parcook root veg but it's a lot of faff first thing, and I keep on reading about people who insist they don't need to parcook anything! What am I doing wrong? We have the ubiquitous Morphy Richards 3.5 litre one.

Psykicpup

if your using raw veg instead of left overs like what I do LOL I think you may need to cook on High rather than low.....

badgermonkey

It seems like a long time to leave stuff on High, though. 9 hours?

jcr16

i have the cheap cookworks , was on offer in argos for £9.99. and i when i do a casserole . i put carrrots and onions in , and it goes on low from about 9am maybe 10. and it ready by 4.

so i'm thinking maybe ur low heat is too low ? how old is your slow cooker. could it be faulty ?

jcr16

readin what was written about high heat. first time i used my slow cooker i put it on high and the meal was cooked in just a couple hours, whoops. so 9 hours on a high heat does seem a bit too much.

Ellidee

Hi badgermonkey hope it's not a daft question but did you pre-heat slow cooker on high for 20 mins before bunging stuff in ?

badgermonkey

No - are you meant to? I thought you shouldn't put it on with nothing in!

Update on dinner - after half an hour on the hob everything is STILL rock hard, so I think dinner is ruined. Hmm. Chips it is - not very OS!

Ellidee

YES !!! You should always pre-heat. HTH

Sola

I never preheat. I bung everything in at 7am (raw veg, even frozen meat, liquid), turn it on to Low and it's done perfectly by 6pm.

jackieb

I never preheat mine. I've done whole carrots, with a chicken resting on them, and they always end up soft. I have the big Morphy Richards one. I just turn the heat up and down as I see fit. I usually start it off on high and turn it down. If I think it's taking too long I turn it up to high again , but it's never on high for the whole time. No good if you're going out for the day though.

JenniO

If after boiling your veg on the hob for half an hour in the chicken stock liquid and they are still 'hard' then something's just plain wrong here. All I can figure is either your diced 'cubes' were bigger than normal, or you didn't have them completely submersed in liquid. Cut up carrots cook in boiling liquid certainly within 15 minutes, not to mention half an hour.

I'm not trying to convince you that you can't cook root veg please don't get me wrong, but just concerned that it may not be the stock pot at all. But IF it is, by all means be careful cooking raw meat in it until you are certain everything is OK.