Slow cooking – easy & efficient with a slow cooker

Autumn is the time for stews and slow cookers. Cooking food at a slightly lower temperature for a slightly longer time has several advantages and can be done in several ways, with different types of equipment.

Slow cooking means that more nutrients are preserved because the ingredients are simmered and not boiled, and it also gives better taste, claim proponents. Slow cooking gives plenty of time for spices and flavors to be absorbed by the food being cooked, and in cases where you prepare meat, you can advantageously use significantly cheaper ingredients than those you use when you only fry for a couple of minutes before serving.

You can of course use a classic cast iron or ceramic pot, which simmers on the stove or in the oven for several hours, or you can use a slow cooker.

With a slow cooker, you can put the ingredients in the pot, set the temperature according to the recipe, and then let the food cook on its own. You can start your slow cooker before you go to work and let dinner cook itself during the day, and since there is usually a keep-warm mode, it's no problem if you have to work overtime and get home late.

Electrolux Home lists on its website, in an article with the title ”How a slow cooker works”, the following advantages of a slow cooker:

You save money on groceries. You don't have to choose the most expensive meat, even a cheaper option will give a tender and tasty result.
By cooking in the slow cooker, you retain vitamins and nutrients from meat and vegetables.
You also don't need to add fat when cooking your food.
You can start your slow cooker in the morning and let dinner cook itself during the day, saving time.
The slow cooker uses minimal power (235 W) compared to cooking food in an oven.
You can easily clean your slow cooker by removing the removable ceramic inner pot and washing it in the dishwasher.

Slow cooking on the stovetop

A big advantage of an induction hob compared to a ceramic hob is that you can regulate the heat quickly – just like with a gas hob. An induction hob is also more energy efficient than a ceramic hob, partly because it only heats the cookware and partly because the heating is much faster, which means you don't have to keep the hob running for as long.

Some induction hobs on the market only have nine power levels available in their standard mode, and for many this is more than enough, but if you find, for example, that the pancakes are cooked too poorly on mode 6 and too hard on mode 7, it is easy to change so that you get twice as many power levels and can set the hob to 6.5. It can also be good if you want to run slow cooking on your hob – as mode 2.5 may be optimal rather than mode 2 or 3.

When it comes to induction hobs, the big trend right now is hobs with a built-in fan. In the Norwegian industry magazine Electronics Industry 4/2022 You can read that in 2021 Elkjøp increased its sales of hobs with built-in fans by 400 percent compared to the previous year, and that they expect sales to continue to increase.

The latest market figures for 2022 in Sweden point to an 80 percent increase, compared to last year, during the first five months of the year. For the full year 2021, there are no increase figures compared to the previous year, as the category was new to the statistics in 2021.

The range has increased and the products have become better and better with each new generation. An example of product development in this category is Miele's two new models KMDA 7272 Silence and KDMA 7473 Silence, which were presented at IFA 2022 and will be launched in December, which are stated to be 30 percent quieter than the previous generation despite being more efficient and in boost mode can suck up as much as 610 cubic meters of air per hour.

“This makes them the quietest on the market and the perfect customer offering for modern homes,” says Till Deutschmann, Head of Category Marketing Hobs and Hoods at Miele.

With the Con@ctivity function, the suction power is automatically adjusted to what is actually happening on the hob, and shortly after cooking is finished, the hood switches off automatically. And thanks to the slim design and a built-in depth of only 20 cm, only the top drawer under the unit is sacrificed with Plug&Play installation – all other drawers under the hob/hood can be used as storage space.

The new hobs can be installed either with ventilation (the air is vented out of the house/apartment) or recirculation (the air is filtered and returned to the kitchen again).

Text: Ola Larsson

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