It has to be said, the author does like a stew. On a cold Autumn evening with the rain tapping out a rhythm on the window, a plate of creamy mashed potato and a thick meaty stew will definitely improve the outlook!
How to cook it though? Stew doesn’t need heat as much as it needs time: a couple of hours’ cooking is a minimum to really get the flavours to develop.
This is where the Eco family slow cooker really shines. Like all of them, it’s simply a low-power heater surrounding a removable pot. We’ve checked the power usage: 150W – about average. Once switched on, it’s ready to go in about 10-15 minutes. As with the oven stew, we pre-cook the meat and veg, tipping it all into the pot already hot. We leave it in there for three hours, during which we hear the heater clicking on and off regularly and keeping things at a nice 90-95oC. Then we serve it up and eat like kings. Compare that to the oven – which warms up a little quicker, granted – but does it with a 1,500W heating element and a fan. Stew doesn’t cook any faster in a low oven so the cooking time isn’t reduced and that big old oven seems to switch it’s powerful heat source on and off at, very roughly, the same ratio our little slow cooker does with it’s tiny heater.
On balance, the slow cooker uses around 0.2KWh and the oven? A rather larger 1.5KWh
I know why slow-cooker stew tastes better now: it’s not tainted by the smell of money going down the drain!