Some of you will have read in a recent post that I finally broke down and bought a slow cooker, a kitchen device also known in the States—to those of you who are old enough—as a ‘Crock Pot’. The thought of owning one had never really occurred to me before. The Crock Pot craze of the ’70s, which brought us some pretty awful cooking (a can of this, a can of that…) was still seared into my memory banks.
But I started hearing about ‘slow cookers’ from cooks that I liked and admired. Then came Michele Scicolone’s Italian Slow Cooker cookbook and my resolve began to waiver. And then I started reading Ad Hoc At Home, by perhaps American’s most respected chef, Thomas Keller, in which he mentions the slow cooker as one of his prized kitchen tools, in particular for beans. Well, that did it. I had to see what everyone was talking about. (By the way, if you don’t have these books, I would heartily recommend both of them!)
I have promised you, dear readers, to share with you my impressions, so here goes.I realize now that a slow cooker, though marketed as a convenience tool—usually the kiss of death in my book—is really just another way to achieve the kind of gentle most cooking that most cooks will do in a Dutch oven or, in Italy, a terracotta pot. All kinds of dishes that you would want to simmer for hours on end: rich sauces, broths and, yes, beans—all come out wonderfully in a slow cooker. And, yes, it is also convenient: it frees up your stove for other uses, can be left on all day if you like, and will keep your food warm indefinitely. What it is not, as the name implies, is quick. But once you’re down with the initial steps (in the Italian context, that mean making a soffritto and the rosolatura of the main ingredient) you can leave whatever you’re making unattended until it’s done.
So far, I’ve had excellent results with broth, beans (look out for coming posts!) and, as I will get to in a moment, polenta and ragù. Not everything I’ve made so far has been a smashing success, however. Stews and pot roasts, for example, have not turned out as I would have liked. I tried to make a brasato al vino rosso, for example—the very first dish I tried in my new slow cooker—and found the meat rather stringy and the sauce thin and bland.
That brings me to an important point when it comes to slow cooking: as when cooking in a pressure cooker, there is very little evaporation and therefore very little concentration of flavors. So you need to use much less liquid than you ordinarily would. And those dishes that requires evaporation to work will not work very well in a slow cooker. I tried making a spezzatino di pollo, for example, with vinegar. Made in the conventional way, the vinegar evaporates and its flavor mellows to the point where you would probably not know it was even there (unless you’re the cook, that is!) In a slow cooker, the vinegar flavor is as strong when the dish is done as when you started, and that’s not a good thing. So it’s back to the drawing board for me on stews and pot roasts. I’ll report back to you, kind readers, when I’ve figured out the best way to handle them.
In any event, on to our recipes!
SLOW COOKER POLENTA
Making real polenta is a laborious job, as we all know, involving a lot of stirring over a good 45 minutes or more to reach the right, creamy consistency. Italians have developed any number of tricks to make the job a bit easier, as I have outlined in my post on How to Make Polenta. The slow cooker provides yet another easy (if not very quick) way to make polenta.
Ingredients
1 part polenta (by volume)
5 parts water (by volume)
A pinch of salt
(NB: I made a batch from 1 cup of polenta mixed with 5 cups of water.)
Directions
You mix the polenta and cold water together in your slow cooker with a whisk or wooden spoon. Then sprinkle the mixture with a pinch of salt. Turn on your slow cooker to high and let it go at it for 3 hours. Stir after two hours or, if you prefer, every hour. (Recipes vary.) If the polenta is getting too thick, you can add some water, but not too much—remember, you can’t count on evaporation to thicken the polenta by more than a very marginal amount.
Slow cooker polenta will stay smooth and soft for several hours if left on ‘warm’.
Notes
Made this way, the polenta turned out fine. Was the texture quite a fine as the hand-stirred variety made in a traditional paiolo? No, not really. But it was certainly acceptable—more than acceptable, in fact. The difference was subtle, not one that would be obvious to anyone other than the true cognoscenti.
Three hours is a sort of awkward time. Too long to be ‘quick’, but not long enough, say, to make in the morning before work and have it ready by the time you get home. For that, you can cook your polenta over low heat for double the time (6 hours). I have not tried this variation but it would seem to work.
(NB: There is a general rule for slow cooking, which says that you can cook must about anything for x hours on high or 2x hours on low. I have yet to find an explanation of what difference, if any, it makes to the final outcome.)
SLOW COOKER SAUSAGE RAGÙ
You would think that a slow cooker would be the ideal implement for making a Sunday Sauce and, indeed, it would seem to be ideal for all sorts of long simmering sauces. To accompany this polenta, I made a variation on the classic Roman dish, polenta con salsiccia e spuntature (polenta with sausages and spareribs), which we’ve featured on this blog. I just left out the spareribs, since I couldn’t find any in my freezer and there was just too much snow outside to make a dash to the market. The result was still delicious.
To make the sausage ragù, you simply proceed as you would normally do, using the classic recipe. Brown your sausages (or both sausages and spareribs) in olive oil (or lard) a skillet, transferring them to the slow cooker when they are nicely browned. Then sauté your onions and garlic in the grease left in the skillet until you have a nice soffritto. Deglaze the skillet with red wine and add it all to the slow cooker. making sure to scrape out all that goodness at the bottom with a spatula. Then pour over enough puréed canned tomato to cover the meats well. Season with salt and pepper, and let your ragù simmer on low for at least six hours, more if you like. Serve the meat and a bit of sauce over your polenta as pictured above.
Notes
Obviously, unless you have two slow cookers, you will need to make the ragù the day before—which is fine, since like most slow-cooked foods, a ragù benefits from a day’s rest.
* * *
Post Scriptum: Polenta pasticciata
You can use any leftover polenta and ragù to make a heart-warming polenta pasticciata:
Slather your leftover slow cooker polenta on a baking sheet and let it cool. It will harden into a sliceable mass. (You can also just pour it into a glass or other container if you prefer, which is my usual method.)J
The next day, or whenever you want to use your leftovers, take some terracotta bowls (or a single casserole if you prefer) and grease the bottoms well with a bit of olive oil. Lay over some slices of polenta, then some of the meats from the ragù, which you will have sliced or chopped into bite-sized pieces. Then spoon over a bit of your leftover ragù, and then some béchamel sauce. (If you like, you can melt some grated or sliced cheese into the béchamel for extra flavor. This time, instead of the usual parmigiano, I used slices of young asiago). Repeat until you have used up your ingredients or filled up your baking vessels. Finish with the béchamel, into which you can swirl some more ragù for color. Sprinkle over some cheese if you like (I didn’t) and drizzle with some olive oil.
Bake in a hot oven (200°C, 400°F) for about 25 minutes or so, until the mixture is bubbly and nicely browned on top. Let it cool off for a few minutes before serving.
Slow Cooker Polenta
Ingredients
- 1 part polenta by volume
- 5 parts water by volume
- A pinch of salt
Instructions
- You mix the polenta and cold water together in your slow cooker with a whisk or wooden spoon. Then sprinkle the mixture with a pinch of salt. Turn on your slow cooker to high and let it go at it for 3 hours. Stir after two hours or, if you prefer, every hour. (Recipes vary.) If the polenta is getting too thick, you can add some water, but not too much—remember, you can't count on evaporation to thicken the polenta by more than a very marginal amount.
- Slow cooker polenta will stay smooth and soft for several hours if left on 'warm'.
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21 Comments on “Slow Cooker Polenta with Sausage Ragù”
Do you have the old yellow steel crock pot with a separate brown metal base? I lost my recipe booklet that had the best beef stew recipe. It had beef, buillon, fresh tomatoes, green pepper, and Worcestershire sauce. Have tried to replicate it but can't get it quite right.
@Gas range cookers: Well, thank you so much for your kind words. Do stop by as often! And if you're looking for a particular recipe and don't see it here, don't hesitate to drop us a line. Cheers, Frank
I just couldn’t leave your website before telling you that we really enjoyed the quality information you offer to your visitors… Will be back often to check up on new posts.
Thanks, folks, for all your lovely comments! Truly appreciated, as ever…
@Giovanna: Ciao e benvenuta! Grazie di aver visitato questo mio blog. Ho visto che anche tu c'hai un bellissimo blog Burro e Alici… tra l'altro è uno spuntino che mi fa impazzire ma sopratutto mi fa ricordare la mia amatissima Roma…
@Claudia: It is great for those days when you're puttering around the house. Definitely worth a revisit—and perhaps a new slow cooker? I hear that they are much better made than they used to be.
@Emily: Really, too kind!
@Oana: If you do try this, let us know how it turns out!
@Trix: Thanks for the tips! I will definitely try that to see if I can get some good flavor out of my slow cooker stews.
@Drick: Grits and grillades—just the name itself makes its sound delicious. I'll need to look that up!
@Lin Ann: Thanks for stopping by and thanks so much for your readership!
@Priyanka: Many thanks… I am honored and humbled that you though of me!
And thanks to you all for stopping by. Come back soon, ya hear?
Good slow cooker tips, Frank.
Your little casserole looks delicious.
LL
Hi…..Please visit my blog an award is waiting for you ….. 🙂
Thank you so much for visiting my blog the other day. I've been following your blog for some time now through Networked Blogs and it's wonderful! I love the way you talk about your recipes and their origins, history, etc. I can tell you really love cooking and doing this. This recipe (and all of them actually) looks wonderful. Thanks for the slow cooker cookbook recommendation, I don't have a good one. Looks like I'll have to brush the dust off my slower cooker and try this!
this sounds so good with the tomato sauce, ya know, our version is similar using a poor-mans cut of meat, normally beef – grits and grillades
Oh my goodness. What a FANTASTIC recipe! I have guests coming for supper this week and I think I will have to make this. I love this blog Frank! Also, Thomas Keller also happens to be one of my favorite chef's to read :).
really interesting article :-)))
Interesting! I have been looking forward to your slow cooker polenta post, I can't wait to give it a try in my antique Regal Crock Pot. I am also looking forward to seeing your bean dishes. You are right about the stews, they can be thin and also not have as much payering of flavor – one thing that helps is if you coat your meat in some flour and sear it first, which acts to both enhance the flavor of the meat and help thicken the broth.
We've had polenta two times in the past two weeks 🙂 and we're not sick of it! So, making this would be another winner for us…thank you for sharing. I love my slow cooker and I love the recipe you've given us!
Love polenta! I eat it quite often. Slow cooked, fried, and any other way, What a great comfort food!
Thanks for making me remember my slow cooker. I usually use it for added flavor after I have braised the meat in a skillet. Thanks for sharing your trials. Your dishes looks great!
This makes me sigh because I'm not a polenta (or grits) person at all, but it looks so fantastic. I keep trying it in hopes that someday I'll enjoy this Italian delight, but so far it's eluded me. Thank you for the recipe though!
Probably the best thing to have been made by any slow cooker ANYWHERE.
Gorgeous 🙂
I need to play with this – I've tried it once and I think my slow-cooker has a mind of its own and does not “slow cook” enough. I like the ease – for days when I am home but super busy working so don't want to babysit food. And I love the combination of polenta and sausage.
Che bel blog! Da brava romana ADORO il sugo di spuntature (anche se nella ricetta le hai omesse per pigrizia… per le spuntature la neve si può affrontare 😉 Davvero ottime ricette e la tua nonna Angelina mi ricorda tanto la mia nonna Silvana.
Saluti
After I bought That book, I made the slow cooker polenta and I was really surprised at how good it was. I also make it the old fashioned way, but I like the soft texture the slow cooker gives. You're reminding me to go take that book off the shelf and make of her recipes. Your polenta pasticciata is a favorite of mine.
I don't use my slow cooker enough. This looks ridiculously inviting!