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What Did You Cook for Dinner?


MKnight82

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2 minutes ago, pwny said:

What do you mean when it acts as a crock pot? The delay start and keep warm functions work on every cook mode.

Also, what do you mean by flexibility?

You are getting way to into this discussion. I am saying the instapot mimics the purpose of the crockpot with some functions. 

As for flexibility, and instapot is sealed, a crockpot isnt. So you can add/remove ingredients during the cooking process with more ease. 

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1 minute ago, Daniel said:

I mean, it seems you can cure those both by browning the meat ahead of time, like I would assume you should do in a pressure cooker too, and putting in less liquid.

I'm guessing you didn't read the article. Because both of these assumptions are wrong and explained why they're wrong in the article. Maillard browning doesn't just happen on the surface of meat, it happens throughout whatever you're cooking and adds the depth to the dish. And putting in less liquid would definitely make it less liquidy, but the purpose of reduction in cooking is it concentrates flavors, not simply having less liquid present.

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2 minutes ago, Matts4313 said:

As for flexibility, and instapot is sealed, a crockpot isnt. So you can add/remove ingredients during the cooking process with more ease. 

Well you can't remove or add food while it's cooking if you're not at home. So I'm guessing this is only a thing while you're home and then don't need the whole keep warm when I'm not here function. That's what the enameled cast iron dutch oven is for.

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1 minute ago, pwny said:

Well you can't remove or add food while it's cooking if you're not at home. So I'm guessing this is only a thing while you're home and then don't need the whole keep warm when I'm not here function. That's what the enameled cast iron dutch oven is for.

Well of course. But thats the point isnt it? Crockpot is a cheap inbetween of the other two options. 

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4 minutes ago, Daniel said:

Of course not.

Well then I'll bring the point to you. There's many more examples in the article, but here's an idea of how different the process is.

 

Beef stew cooked in a dutch oven:

20161020-slow-cooker-pressure-cooker-dut

 

In a pressure cooker:

20161020-slow-cooker-pressure-cooker-dut

 

In a crock pot:

20161020-slow-cooker-pressure-cooker-dut

 

Even just looking at them, you can tell that the crockpot makes a trash product compared to the other two.

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15 minutes ago, Matts4313 said:

Well of course. But thats the point isnt it? Crockpot is a cheap inbetween of the other two options. 

It's also terrible quality food by comparison. Which is my point.

Yes, if you have no money and the only thing that you can get is a hand me down crock pot, then that's probably the best for you. But if you can swing the $40 for a (decent, but not great) enameled cast iron dutch oven, or the $60 for an on-sale Instant Pot, you're going to be making far, far superior food. The buy in for these isn't prohibitively high that the majority of people really need to be sticking with an inferior product. You don't need a $350 Le Creuset or Staub, or the $250 Fast Slow Pro to make a far superior food to the trash that comes out of a crock pot.

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45 minutes ago, pwny said:

It's also terrible quality food by comparison. Which is my point.

Yes, if you have no money and the only thing that you can get is a hand me down crock pot, then that's probably the best for you. But if you can swing the $40 for a (decent, but not great) enameled cast iron dutch oven, or the $60 for an on-sale Instant Pot, you're going to be making far, far superior food. The buy in for these isn't prohibitively high that the majority of people really need to be sticking with an inferior product. You don't need a $350 Le Creuset or Staub, or the $250 Fast Slow Pro to make a far superior food to the trash that comes out of a crock pot.

You are greatly exaggerating the quality difference. Ive eaten and made a both - its not nearly as dramatic as you are making it. 

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3 minutes ago, Matts4313 said:

You are greatly exaggerating the quality difference. Ive eaten and made a both - its not nearly as dramatic as you are making it. 

I'm not, and the food science is on my side. So if you really don't think there's much of a difference, either your palate is garbage or you're making trash recipes with trash ingredients, because it's significant.

I mean I'm not one to do an appeal to authority, but the link I posted and pictures above are from an award-winning chef who got famous by being the world's authority on taking conventional cooking wisdom and turning it on its head for quicker, simpler and scientifically based principles of cooking. If a crock pot actually made relatively quality food, he would be the chef to tell you it was. He's done hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of testing on slow cooking techniques throughout his career. His testing even used the All Clad slow cooker, a $400 crock pot that is unanimously viewed as the best slow cooker on the planet and far superior to a traditional crock pot. But despite the fact that he often suggests cheating techniques that sacrifice some flavor for the sake of ease (15 minute caramelized onions for example) and that he's actually written slow cooker recipes (slow cooker meatballs for example, and read that one, so you can see how he actually tests the recipes and how he found conventional beliefs on slow cooking meatballs were wrong), he made an article explaining why there's virtually no situation where a slow cooker is warranted. Kinda telling. 

 

And I say this all as someone who owns a crock pot (technically two, as my girlfriend had one too). However, it spent the last year in a storage unit because I had no use for it, and now sits in a box ready to be taken to Goodwill to be donated because I will never make inferior food in it again.

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5 minutes ago, pwny said:

I'm not, and the food science is on my side. So if you really don't think there's much of a difference, either your palate is garbage or you're making trash recipes with trash ingredients, because it's significant.

I mean I'm not one to do an appeal to authority, but the link I posted and pictures above are from an award-winning chef who got famous by being the world's authority on taking conventional cooking wisdom and turning it on its head for quicker, simpler and scientifically based principles of cooking. If a crock pot actually made relatively quality food, he would be the chef to tell you it was. He's done hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of testing on slow cooking techniques throughout his career. His testing even used the All Clad slow cooker, a $400 crock pot that is unanimously viewed as the best slow cooker on the planet and far superior to a traditional crock pot. But despite the fact that he often suggests cheating techniques that sacrifice some flavor for the sake of ease (15 minute caramelized onions for example) and that he's actually written slow cooker recipes (slow cooker meatballs for example, and read that one, so you can see how he actually tests the recipes and how he found conventional beliefs on slow cooking meatballs were wrong), he made an article explaining why there's virtually no situation where a slow cooker is warranted. Kinda telling. 

 

And I say this all as someone who owns a crock pot (technically two, as my girlfriend had one too). However, it spent the last year in a storage unit because I had no use for it, and now sits in a box ready to be taken to Goodwill to be donated because I will never make inferior food in it again.

I know the author. He is the same dude who made all the waves with his ideas on cooking steaks.

I know the ingredients. I know how to cook. 

You are making it sound like the difference between a ford pinto and a rolls royce. Its more the difference between a toyota and a lexus. You are full of hyperbole when it comes to discussing food. 

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9 minutes ago, Matts4313 said:

I know the author. He is the same dude who made all the waves with his ideas on cooking steaks.

I know the ingredients. I know how to cook. 

You are making it sound like the difference between a ford pinto and a rolls royce. Its more the difference between a toyota and a lexus. You are full of hyperbole when it comes to discussing food. 

Again, you're wrong and the science backs me up on it. If you like your food bland with no reduction creating a concentration of flavors and no Maillard reaction browning creating depth, then sure a crock pot is a Toyota. But to anyone who actually wants good quality flavors, a crock pot is trash. Period. And that isn't hyperbole.

Kinda odd that the one of us who owns a crock pot is being told by the one who doesn't own one how it's actually good. Weird.

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Haven't read any of the thread but I just fired up my crock pot and am gonna put some water, salt, and chicken into it. Should I add any other spices like black pepper?? 

I just love how juicy the crock pot keeps my food

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