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What a Crock!

Of course a Jewish mother was behind the invention of the Crock-Pot.

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Illustration by Ryan Miller.

All hail Irving Naxon, a Chicago inventor who was inspired to create an electric pot to make a dish his Lithuanian mother described to him, a traditional Jewish stew that in the old days was cooked during Sabbath by letting the stew sit in a bakery oven for 24 hours.

Irving developed his slow-cooking invention — a ceramic pot heated by electric coils — in the late 1930s and gave it the unwieldy name of the Naxon Beanery All-Purpose Cooker. When Irving retired in 1971, the Rival Corp. bought the rights to the Naxon Beanery and changed its name to Crock-Pot, which, despite the name being used generically, means Crock-Pot is a registered trademark, so “If it doesn’t say Crock-Pot it’s not an original,” according to Sunbeam Products, which now owns the name. Rival still produces the devices, but now calls their products slow cookers.

My first slow cooker — a Rival Crock-Pot — was given to me while I was still in college, working two jobs and trying to raise a three-year-old. It came in handy, knowing that I could pile a bunch of stuff into the crockpot in the morning, turn it on and know I’d have something warm to eat later in the day. But, often, I would return to a crock of hot mush — everything turned into a generic gloop that was sometimes overcooked on the bottoms and sides. The problem was that you turned it on and that was it. There was no way to adjust the heat.

I left my Crock-Pot behind when I moved to Hawaii — just didn’t seem like the place for one-pot meals. But by the time I returned to the mainland, slow cookers had changed. Now there were temperature levels and electronic programming, and you could choose between the traditional round ceramic insert or a larger oval ceramic insert that could take a whole chicken.

Most importantly, cookbook writers began taking this cooking method seriously, which meant techniques were being developed to bring slow cooking to a new level. One of those cookbooks I use regularly is Not Your Mother’s Slow Cooker Cookbook by Beth Hensperger and Julie Kaufmann. I’ve also picked up some great techniques and tips for using a slow cooker from Cook’s Illustrated magazine and their PBS show America’s Test Kitchen. Their greatest technique to giving deep character to a slow-cooked meal involves some stovetop prepping of ingredients before they go into the slow cooker.

Here are a couple of things to remember about slow cooking:

  • Fatty, cheaper cuts of meat work better than lean meats, which tend to toughen up in the slow-cook process.
  • Browning red meats and sautéing vegetables add deeper flavors to the slow-cooked meal. Chicken does not require pre-browning.
  • Add the high notes of the dish — herbs and citrus — toward the end of cooking or those flavors will be lost.
  • If a recipe calls for pasta, add cooked pasta near the end of cooking or you will have pasta mush.
  • Beans must be softened by soaking and/or boiling before combining with sugar or acidic ingredients because those ingredients have a hardening effect on beans.
  • If making a rice dish, risotto and long-grain rice work best in slow cookers.

The following recipe began in my mind the night before as a chili when I put a third-pound each of dried kidney, pinto and Mayocobo beans to soak overnight. But by the end of the improvisatory process of making the dish the next day with what I had on hand, I named it Stormy Day Stew.

Stormy Day Stew

1 lb. dried beans (yields about 6 cups), or the equivalent in canned beans

2 cups chicken broth (I used frozen broth made from the remains of a whole chicken I cooked in the slow cooker several weeks before)

28 oz. can diced tomatoes

12 oz. tomato juice

(I used frozen liquid I previously drained from several cans of diced tomatoes I used for pizza)

1 large onion, roughly chopped

4 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

3 stalks celery, chopped

1 lb. Cremini mushrooms, roughly chopped

2 jalapeño peppers, roasted, seeded and chopped

1 bag petite sweet carrots, roughly chopped

2 zucchini or yellow squash

1 Tbsp blackstrap molasses

1 bottle or can of beer (I used a bottle of Door County Brewing’s fall seasonal L’automne, but use whatever’s in your fridge)

4 ears of corn, cooked and stripped (or 1 lb. bag of frozen corn)

1/2 lb. Kielbasa sausage, sliced into thin rounds

1 bunch of spinach, chopped

1 bunch of cilantro, chopped

1 tsp smoked paprika

This begins the night before by soaking the dry beans. However, if you use canned beans, add them later during the cooking process so they do not turn to mush. After soaking all night, I then bring the beans to a boil and let them simmer until I have all the other ingredients ready to go into the slow cooker, just to make sure I don’t have crunchy beans in the end.

Place the jalapeños in a 350°F oven for about 10 minutes, then take the seeds out and chop.

Melt a tablespoon of butter in a skillet and sauté the chopped vegetables — carrots, onion, garlic, mushrooms and squash.

Place the vegetables, beans, broth, tomatoes and tomato sauce in the cooker. Add the molasses and beer, stir and turn to high for six hours. After three hours, cook the corn, cut it from the cob and add it to the pot (or add frozen corn).

At hour five, add the chopped spinach.

One-half hour before the timer goes off, stir in the chopped cilantro and smoked paprika.

Top with sour cream or shredded cheese.

You’ll note there is no salt in this recipe. I don’t feel it is necessary, but if you can’t live without salt, add it after the beans are fully cooked or you will end up with crunchy beans.