Has anyone tried making them this way and if yes, were they any good?

I've never used a slow cooker but I do know when we have cooked jacket potatoes for a long long time in the oven, it changes the flavour of the potato and makes it sort of nutty !

Steve

I am planning to try it one day soon, have heard good things about it recently.

Hi Mamta

Let us know how you go and what you do. I got my first slow cooker a couple of weeks ago and have used it a couple of times for lamb shanks and a meat stew....I cant see how it would be any better to do a potato in one instead of the oven or microwave?

Cheers

Steve

I have been told that it is more 'meaty'/better in flavour, so I will give it a try. I will certainly tell you how it comes out.

I'll too be interested in how the SC spuds turn out.

If I remember I try to cook jackets in the oven while I have it on for something else, then reheat in microwave when wanted. If I haven't remembered (usually!) I cook them in the microwave then crisp them up in the oven/grill.

Winton

"I cook them in a microwave first and then crisp the skin up in an oven/grill."

Normally I do the same.

I cooked a large sweet potato in a microwave for lunch just now. I sliced it and put a thin film of butter on each slice. It is now crisping in a small oven; you know the small ones Americans have on place of a toaster.

I prefer doing mine in the oven so they go nice and crisp on the outside..

but my other half like them sealed up in foil so they sort of half steam and the skin stays soft...

Steve

How long do you plan on cooking your potato in the SC Mamta? You wouldnt just do one would you? Seems a waste of electricity to be honest especially if you are just doing one for a long slow cook?

Cheers

Steve

Steve, I will cook 4 for my trial. It is just to try once, to see if there is any difference in taste. I have been told to wrap each one in foil (or not), prik them a few times, oil and salt them and just bung them in for 7-8 hours.

I am sure slow cooker electricity use is quite low. They say the potatoes taste 'beefy'.

Mamta

I'm now curious as to what extra/different flavour you get with this .... wonder if pre-baking some potato in this was might help give a new dimension to a potato and onion soup for instance ?

Steve

Never in the history of the potato has so much depended on one test! Mamta - I hope you will be using different varieties of bakers among the specially selected four, to see if any particular type performs better!

lol

Mamta, do two wrapped in foil and the other two not. BUT dont sit the two "nude" potatoes on the bottom of the SC as they will end up sitting in warm condensation water. Make a couple of balls of foil and sit them on those out of the water if you know what I mean?

Cheers

Steve

Good thinking Steve, I will do that. I am leaving USA tomorrow evening, it will take a few days after that to catch up and try out things. Chilli Pepper jam is also on my list, I loved it here.

I've found that cooking in the microwave and then placed in a hot oven gives a lovely and crisp skin and butter soft in the middle, delicious.

The best baking potatoes I have found are Marfona and Vivaldi.

I normally microwave them until they're three parts done and then I toss them in olive oil, sprinkle them with coarse sea salt and bake them in the oven until they're crispy brown.

I have a slow cooker but it never sees the light of day, I have yet to get properly acquainted with it. It has three heat settings on it, and if you leave it on medium or high then the liquid actually boils, I didn't think they were supposed to do that. The one my friend has doesn't do that, it just has an on off button and cooks things really well. Hence the fact I haven't used mine much at all. the last time I cooked a chicken casserole in it I had complaints that chewing the chicken gave people toothache.... :-(

Nancy, I also cook them in a microwave first, well generally, but I then brown/crisp the skin under a grill, not in an oven. I just want to see if they are tastier in a slow cooker, as people have said.

Andrew, food is supposed to come to a boil on high I think. I find it that starting things on high until they come to a good boil, ensures getting rid of any bacteria etc. I then leave it on medium or slow for a good few hours. Food cooks lovely in it, specially meat/chicken. It falls off the bones, very tender. Yours wasn?t properly cooked, if it was chewy. Pull it out of its hiding place and give it a go :-).

I recently got my SC as a belated birthday present. Ive used it every weekend and love it. Lamb shanks, baked whole chicken, Lancashire hotpot. Hence the reason in the SC spuds. I normally just do them in the microwave.

Cheers

Steve

Thanks for that, Mamta, I most certainly will give it a go when I get time. In regards to the chicken not being properly cooked, on the contrary, it was well and truly over done ? it had been on for about 13 hours :-) I don't have much experience with slow cookers and my friend who uses one all of the time normally leaves it on over night to cook meat, so I thought I was doing the right thing. You'd never believe that I was a chef.

I love chicken in the slow cooker, a whole chicken, with a few carrots and onions underneath and then topped up with water to about half way up the bird or so.

5 or so hours is usually enough, sometimes gets left a bit longer.

Lovely, but take care lifting it out of slow cooker as is so soft it can fall apart!

The stock is frozen or refridgerated for another meal. The leftover meat too. And the skin and carcass go back into the slow cooker that night with more water, onions, carrots (or peelings) and bay leaf for a second stock (and it's just as good as the first, not weak or insipid as you might expect).

Delish!

Because I'm a vegetarian I only cook meat for other people, maybe this is part of my problem, although I've never had any complaints except for the slow cooker incident :-)

Sounds good, Kavey! I will definitely give it a try when I have some more time.

Hmmmm all this talk of yummy food and slow cookers.... will just have to get one.I can hear my OH saying "Not another gadget, there is no space in the kitchen!"

So will send him to this read site to read all the comments

Cheers

June

June, you will just have to persuade the OH, that as well as getting delicious food, a SC will save money (lower fuel bills and you can user cheaper cuts of meat,) will free-up more of your time and as a 'one-pot' meal there will be less washing up for him to do! It also make a good storage facility (like a rice cooker doubling up as a bread bin.)

I have been hearing about this multi funtion one a lot recently; http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dkitchen&field-keywords=Morphy+Richards+48810+Intellichef+Silver+&x=16&y=18 It will solve the storage problem. Has anyone used it?

I finally conducted my 'Jacket Potatoes in a slow cooker' experiment today. I had some help from Winton, who sent me an e-mail from the secretary of the Potato Association of America at the University of Maine. I tried the 2 methods mentioned there, with some alterations. I used King Edward Potatoes;

1. I oiled, stabbed with fork and salted (with rock salt) 2 potatoes, wrapped them individually in foil and put them in the pre-heated Slow cooker.

2. I took 4 potatoes from same batch, washed and towel dried them. Then stabbed 2 with a spike thingy, an onion slicing aid like this one; http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/CHEF-AID-ONION-HOLDER-VEGETABLE-CUTTER-CUTTING-SLICER-/360260241383?cmd=ViewItem&pt=UK_Kitchen_Accessories&hash=item53e12f07e7). The other two I stabbed with a sharp knife. Then oiled them all and sprinkled rock salt on them. They went in the SC alongside the wrapped ones.

3. I put the cooker on High for 1 1/2 hour. This seemed to be cooking them too fast, so I turned the cooker down to medium for 2 hours. At this point, they were done. As I didn?t need them for another few hours, I turned the cooker down to low and left them for another 2 hours or so.

The Result;

The wrapped one had soft skin, as expected. They tasted okay but skin was too soft for me.

The unwrapped ones tasted really good. Even my husband thought they tasted very nice. Getting praise out of him is like getting water out of a stone!! The skin was not crisp as in oven, but it tasted quite good. Waht you stab them with did not make any difference. The holes can be tiny or large, it doesn't seem to matter.

Conclusion; Slow cooker is an easy tool to use for making tasty jacket potatoes, especially when you are not planning to cook anything else in the oven.

Now I am wondering if I should post this as a recipe, with pictures. Oh yes, I took pictures! What do you think?

Why not post it... all information is always good..

Steve

Guest posting above was me, oops.

Kavey

"Did you rest them ontop of little foil balls as suggested, to lift them off bottom of crockpot? "

No I didn't rest them on balls of foil, I forgot all abiout that. I might try that next time. They cooked fine, without sticking to the base and all sides were evenly cooked. The recipe is now on site, let me know if you pcik any problems.

Jacket Potatoes in a Slow Cooker

I HAVE ONE:)

Iam very ecited about trying it out this weekend..... any ideas..... lots consider as a first try out.... potatoes, shanks, curry.... any suggestions at one recipe that will not fail:)

cheers

June

Hmmm, how best to trial it?

A curry is of course good, and mum can advise on which recipe might be good starting point.

My fave is a whole chicken. I put some roughly chopped onion and carrot at bottom of slow cooker pot (I don't bother to peel the onion, just quarter it, since it's just for flavour). On top goes the whole chicken. Then add water to come up a little more than half way up the sides of the pot. If you want, you can half-half water and dry white wine. Throw in a bay leaf or two.

And leave it for few hours.

Take a LOT of care when lifting out the chicken as it'll fall into pieces at slightest knock - you need to support as much of it as possible while lifting.

It's beautifully tender.

Drain the liquid stock and store in fridge or freezer. We make chicken risotto using this stock plus leftover meat from the bird.

With the carcass and giblets and leftover skin, I put them back into slow cooker overnight with fresh water, carrot and onions and get a second batch of stock in the morning. It's not all weak and crappy either, it's full of flavour.

Most meat curries will cook nicely in a slow cooker. Lamb shanks are nice, or any other cheaper cuts will do.

Many thanks Kav and Mamta for the suggestions. Bought cheap cut of beef today and will try a curry.

Seeya

June

Take pictures JL, if you are making anythign from this site. We can use a few slowcooker pictures too.

So, is the outcome favoring jackets in the slow cooker, or conventional cooking?

The flavour was much nicer in slow cooker, but if you like crisp skin then baking is still the best. If you want best of both both, prehaps you can crisp the slow cooker potatoes skin under a grill, like I do when cooking them in a microwave oven.