食物极客的朋友，@disneydeborah，asks about slow cooking via Twitter, hoping for tricks, tips, resources, and the like.

There is a certain promise given by a slow cooker, and that is one of dumping a bunch of things into a pot, hitting a button, leaving it alone for 8-12 hours, and returning to fantastic food. It’s a compelling vision, but ultimately more of a mirage than anything that can be truly achieved. There are some dishes that work well that way, but people try to push it too far, and it all goes wrong.

从慢炖锅中充分利用了两个必不可少的部分。首先是准备在开始时做一些额外的工作，以最大程度地提高风味，并使一切都不像是一定的。第二个是了解哪种食物在低温，长煮熟的湿烹饪方法中最有效。

慢炖锅中最简单的事情之一是自制的库存。这需要最少的额外工作，您可以使用多种材料。从技术上讲，这只会制造出一种将来将来的成分，因此它不会独自一人。库存可在许多菜肴中使用，尤其是未来的慢炖菜。另外，您可以从少量的努力中转变为用准备动力发疯，以便获得所有的风味。

The easiest way to make a great, say, chicken stock is to grab a bunch of legs and thighs, some carrots, celery and onions, dump it into the slow cooker, cover it with water, throw in some dried herbs and peppercorns, and cook it on low for 10-12 hours. Once it’s done, ditch all of the solids and freeze the rest until you’re ready to use it. Great in soups, braises, stews, pot pies, or whatever.

If you want to take it a step farther, chop the vegetables, put into a large pan with a little vegetable oil, add some salt, and cook over medium-low heat until the vegetables start turning translucent. Put all that in the slow cooker then do all the stuff from the previous paragraph.

Want to go just a step farther? Lightly coat the chicken legs and thighs with canola oil or similar, roast at 425°F until it browns a bit, then do all the stuff from the previous two paragraphs.

想要没有肉的东西吗？跳过鸡肉，加入更多蔬菜。对于那些看起来有些难过但尚未分解的蔬菜，这是一个很好的用途。

您要在慢烹饪中添加额外步骤的主要原因有两个主要原因。首先是不同的食物以不同的速度烹饪，因此，如果您尝试在尝试烹饪肉类的同时和温度下烹饪蔬菜，那么您的肉很可能会过度煮熟。考虑胡萝卜和西葫芦南瓜之间的区别。一片与一片西葫芦南瓜相同的胡萝卜厚度比南瓜更密集和酥脆。这肯定会影响烹饪时间，因此您不想同时添加它们。胡萝卜必须比南瓜烹饪更长的时间，所有其他东西都相等。

您要添加单独步骤的第二个原因是因为有一些额外口味的温度，并且您不会在慢炖锅中获得这些温度。来自Maillard反应的褐变尤其如此。烤面包的褐色，牛排的灼热，奶酪在烤通心粉和奶酪砂锅中的褐色以及炸鸡的脆皮棕色涂层都是可爱的深色温度，从加热到水的沸点上方。在褐变中发生了很多口味，您只是将所有东西都放在锅中，用水覆盖和烹饪4-12小时而无法获得。

To fix the problem of low temperature, if you’re cooking some meat in a slow cooker, cut the meat to whatever size you plan to cook it at, and use high heat in a skillet, if it’s small enough, or oven if it’s too big, and cook the outside. The reason you want a high temperature is because you want to cook the outside quickly without cooking the interior much at all. If you were just cooking something on the stove or the oven, you’d likely use a lower temperature so that the outside is browned around the same time as the inside is fully cooked. However, since you will have several hours of cooking left, you want to pour as much heat in at once, get the outside cooked, and leave the inside as uncooked as possible.

现在我们已经谈到了技术，让我们看一下成分。我最喜欢的其他慢煮菜是拿起猪的波士顿屁股（又称猪肉肩），将其放入慢炖锅中，盖上一些啤酒，撒上一些盐和一些香料，然后煮熟低热量10-12小时。完成后，猪肉应该从骨头上掉下来，并用叉子轻松碎裂。实际上，团结起来应该很难。您可以在与猪肉配合得很好的任何东西中使用它。

For those who don’t eat pork, there are still good lessons to be learned. The shoulder is a hard working muscle, and traditionally is a lower-cost cut of meat. When you compare with, say, a filet mignon cut of beef, they are as different as can be. The filet is from a muscle that hardly gets any work at all. It’s tender, needs to be cooked very little at high heat, and has not much flavor at all. The filet is a terrible cut to use in a slow cooker. What you want is the hard working muscles. These are filled with connective tissue that develops from all the work. There’s lots of flavor in these cuts, but they have to be cooked very slowly, because the connective tissue won’t dissolve until it hits a relatively high temperature for meat.

为了在所有结缔组织溶解之前避免过度烹饪肉的外部，您必须慢慢烹饪。为了慢慢烹饪，您要使用湿烹饪方法。这一切都直接指向慢炖锅。因此，如果您要煮鸡肉，请使用腿和大腿，它们比乳房和其他白肉部分更努力。对于牛肉，请使用牛s。如果与其他动物相比，这是低成本的肉类，那么您几乎可以肯定使用正确的切割。如有疑问，请问您的屠夫可以使用什么好炖肉。

So, now that you know the theory, let’s get to the specifics. Fortunately, Fine Cooking has慢炖锅的一系列食谱。Look for the ones that both sound great and use these principles in order to be sure that you’re going to have the best slow cooking experience you can. Cut corners if you must, but when you’re saving time from not doing the extra prep, be sure to use the best (and most appropriate) ingredients that you can find.