Crockpot to Oven

[Allura]

How do I convert a recipe given for a crockpot to an oven? Is this even reasonable to do?

I'm currently receiving the "low carb menu mailer", from Saving Dinner which is pretty decent (and sometimes really good), and, frankly easy & keeping me on my (doctor required) diet. I have a VERY hard time deciding among choices, so menu planners work much better then cookbooks. The catch is that she uses a crockpot recipe once a week, and I just am not happy about how they come out. The flavors all seem sort of washed out, instead of concentrated. I just made one that was a take on beef burgandy - beef cubes, red wine, onions, carrots, mustard, thyme, and a bit of tomato - it should have been really yummy, and it smelled great when I was sauteing it all first, but all that flavor was gone by the time it came out of the crockpot. So I'm wondering what I do to convert a "cook on low for 7-8 hours" recipe. Yeah, I'm a truly novice cook.

Thanks!

[fifi]

That is a truly excellent question. And I don't have a truly excellent answer.

I do a lot of low/slow cooking and sometimes use the crockpot and sometimes a covered Le Creuset in a 250F oven. If I am going to leave the house and go shopping, I may crank the oven down to 225F. One thing that amazed me was that the LC in the oven seems to cook a lot faster. Over in the dried bean thread, we attribute that to the fact that the pot with conductive lid is completely surrounded by heat and the crock pot has a "cold side"... the lid. The real test was Camellia Red Beans to make that classic, Louisiana Red Beans and Rice. To get to real creaminess in the crock pot normally takes about 4 or 5 hours. The LC in the oven method took 2 hours from bag to the bowl. I was astounded. I had a similar experience with cooking paprika chicken. It was all nice and falling apart at about 2 hours I think.

All I know to do, like I did with the beans and the chicken, is just peek and see what is happening. Then I have made a note of the time for dishes that I will be repeating. The good news is that this method of cooking is very forgiving.

Then there was the time I thought I had turned off the small beef brisket happily crock potting in a sugar/soy sauce/ginger concoction. I thought I had hit the off button. I woke up to brisket a la charcoal! Live and learn. Slow cooking is not forgiving of sheer idiocy.

[Richard Kilgore]

My experience is similar to Linda's (except for the reduction al carbon). So I would suggest you start with 250 degrees, checking carefully at 40% of the time specified in the crockpot recipe.

[Allura]

I do a lot of low/slow cooking and sometimes use the crockpot and sometimes a covered Le Creuset in a 250F oven.

Le Crueset are enamel coated metal, right? I've just got a (cheezy) covered metal roasting pan, but it ought to do the trick, I guess. Of course, this would give me an excuse to pick up Le Crueset

Of course, I have the added challenge of trying to time things so that DH can get off to work at 3pm - I cook a big lunch and eat leftovers for dinner, instead of the other way around. But the next crockpot recipe is just a cut up chicken with veggies & chicken broth, so that should be a fairly easy one. I know how long baking chicken takes, so I've got a decent idea for making it a slow cook. And I think it will taste better in the oven.

Thanks for the help; I'll let you know how it turns out.

[fifi]

Amazon has a great price on a 2 1/2 quart oval oven... $55.99! I was dancing in the aisles when I got mine about 3 months ago at $65. That pot is my new best friend. I am cooking for one but it will also work for two. (If you decide to bite, please use the link below.) The neat thing about LC is that it is also great on top of the stove. Here is how that works...

The other day, there was this nice little package of beef short ribs that called to me. I browned them really well, took the meat out, threw in some onion/celery/green pepper and sauteed that, added some red wine and cooked it down, put the meat back in, opened a can of Ro-Tel tomatoes and added that, some thyme and bay leaves. Into the oven for about an hour and a half. Woo... Hoo... You can get really good flavor if you take the time to do the browning. You can assemble the other ingredients while the browning is going on. Total prep time was about 15 minutes.

[Allura]

That's what was so disappointing about the last stew I made in the crockpot. It smelled wonderful while I was browning it, but lost it somewhere during the actual cooking process.

I tend to cook double batches, so we have leftovers for dinner. So I'd need something more like the 5qt oven. It's currently $140 at amazon, so I think it's going on the wishlist for now; I'll come back and use the link if I get it from amazon, though. Thanks for the reminder.

I think I'm off to read the Le Crueset thread now

Edit: typo

Edited October 27, 2004 by Allura (log)

[Allura]

I just wanted to say thanks for the help. We just finished lunch, and everything was yummy . The green beans & carrots were soft, but still had some crunch (and flavor!) to them, and the chicken was falling off the bone, but not "mushy". I think I'm converted to using the oven.

Thanks again!