An idea: Sear & Simmer Slow Cooker

[joeekaitis]

A few years ago, Crock-Pot offered Versa Ware, slow cookers with crocks that could be used on the stove for sauteing but not searing. The instructions tell you to coat the crock with fat and add the food before you put it on the stove over heat no higher than medium, something Martin Yan would never forgive. Like Pyrex Flameware, you needed a diffuser to use it on electric coil burners. It didn't stay on the market very long probably because people were hoping they could sear their stew meat or pot roast in the crock instead of dirtying up another pot. It wasn't as "versa" as the name inferred.

Now, if you were to make the crocks from (yeah, you already know where I'm headed) Pyroceram or, even more classy-looking, Calexium (the transparent amber stuff VISIONS is made of), you'd have a slow cooker with a crock that could really go from searing on the stove to simmering in its heating base to under the broiler and, after dinner, into the fridge or freezer with a fitted plastic storage lid. You CAN sear meat in Pyroceram and Calexium. It comes out with a caramelized crust similar to searing in cast iron.

If a Sear & Simmer Slow Cooker really existed, would anyone here be likely to buy it? Whaddya say, world?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Pardon my ignorance, but I was led to believe that there was a browning effect from the infrared heat coming through the side wall of the slow cooker over the many hours of slow cooking and that was why meats did not need to be browned beforehand. That is not the case? Do you mean everything out of those looks & tastes boiled? Yech. Some people thought that a pot roast out of a pressure cooker would be like boiled beef until it was explained that the roast was thoroughly seared on all sides before pressuring; indeed, that's how the rich flavor develops.

 

[hunter]

or find an old slow cooker...

...with a pyroceram insert. (One of the Corningware slow cookers, in other words). Goodwill was my friend a while back

The sad thing is mostly I pressure cook these days but sometimes I do use slow cookers.

 

[joeekaitis]

Most slow cooker recipes for cut-up chicken, i.e.: chicken cacciatore, beef stew and big cuts like pot roast and meat loaf recommend searing in a suitable vessel. A vitroceramic crock would eliminate the need for a separate searing pot.

 

[retropia]

Huh, our current slow cooker is a Corningware; I bought it because it matches our Corningware French White baking dishes. But the matching part is just a ring of white plastic around the metal base of the cooker that looks similar to the scalloped sides of the baking dishes. I'd always assumed this cooker was just made for Corning by someone else. So the crock might be a different construction from other slow cooker crocks?

For my slow cooker pot roasts, I pan sear each side of the roast for about two or three minutes in a little olive oil, before putting it in the crock. For my beef stew recipe, I just place the raw beef directly in the cooker. I can't tell any difference in the way the cooked beef looks or tastes. Both the pot roast and beef stew taste great and look appealing.

 

[joeekaitis]

The Rival/Corning Ware Crock-Pots were only 3 quart, barely enough for a healthy batch of marinara sauce.

Now, make a heating base to go with the current stock VISIONS 5-liter Dutch oven, and I'll be first in line, debit card in hand.

 

[mysteryclock]

What about this one?

All-Clad's top-of-the-line cooker features a nonstick cast-aluminum insert that you can use on the stovetop to brown ingredients before transferring it to the base for slow cooking.

Push-button controls and easy-to-read digital display eliminate guesswork.

7-qt. nonstick aluminum insert goes from stovetop to slow cooker to table.

Use insert on its own to cook and serve a variety of one-pot dishes.

Insert is ideal for use with gas and electric cooktops, but is not induction compatible.

Automatically keeps foods warm until serving time.

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[tomturbomatic]

I have a WH portable EconoCooker downstairs. It uses the regular aluminum deepwell kettle that sits in a porcelain well. I will have to plug it in sometime and see if the heat only comes from the bottom or if it comes from the sides as well. There is no visible element. At least with the aluminum pan, meats could be browned before slow cooking, not that I would use it now.

Those Nesco roasters and casseroles came in sizes as small as 3 quarts and had a porcelain inset pan. The heat comes from the sides and bottom. You could brown foods on the stove top in those, but they had a higher wattage and the heat would cycle to maintain the cooking temperature whereas the crock pots were low wattage and just heated steadily. I don't know enough about slow cooking to know if that makes any difference.

 

[turquoisedude]

Didn't West Bend have a slow cooker with a crockery cooking pot that rested on a teflon griddle-like base?  Could that have been intended as a sear and simmer unit (sear the meat on the griddle then transfer to the crock)??

 

Somewhere in the depths of the 'Ogdenville Appliance Museum' (Ok, it's just the garage) I have a Sunbeam automatic frypan with the crock insert, but no instructions...  Perhaps these were also intended for sear and simmer cooking.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I don't think that Sunbeam was for sear & simmer with the crockery insert. You would have a pan all messed up from browning something. You would not plop the crockery insert in that and let the stuff bake on the skillet for hours and hours as the food slow cooked in the crockery thing. I am afraid this was a desperate attempt by Sunbeam to boost lagging electric skillet sales by slapping the latest fad onto it (or into it) and trying to sell a crockery cooker, which they did not have, and charge more than for just an electric skillet. Is your skillet Teflon coaated? I guess Teflon would have made cleanup easier if you did do sear & simmer.

The WestBend pot that sat on a slow cooker base was porcelain on steel. Someone posted a picture of one a couple of weeks ago.

 

[petek]

$279 for the All-Clad is robbery when you can get a deluxe HB or Crockpot slow cooker for $50 or less with more features. Besides it's a teflon coated aluminum insert. I wouldn't pay that much for something that's going to probably scratch and/or wear off in a matter of a year or two which always happens with Teflon.

As for the pre-browning. .I don't bother, if it's going to be cooking for 8+ hours it browns naturally

 

[brisnat81]

Breville sell something similiar here to the allclad.

An aluminum teflon covered insert that is stovetop friendly.

A friend of ours bought one and I'm not overly impressed, unlike a heavy ceramic crock, it doesnt retain heat. Any time you lift the lid, the temp drops significantly.

The fact that it costs almost $200 doesnt help, compared to $50-$120 for a traditional crockpot

 

[westie2]

The Walk away pot

Anyone have that pot they had on TV commericals where you put the food in the pot cooked it so long then sealed it and cut the heat off and walked away and came back and mealwas ready?  Been several years since it was on the TV.  Was like a air core or something.

 

[twintubdexter]

cheap & works for me

I have a feeling that several of you gourmet professionals are going to poo-poo this post but here goes anyway. I purchased a Wolfgang Puck VersaCooker at Overstock about a year ago. This was a refurbished unit probably from HSN since they sell thousands of these things. The price was about $44, no tax and no shipping. The unit arrived and other than the original carton being generic brown there was absolutely no way you could tell it from a non-refurbished appliance.

I've used it several times and found it to be great. It doubles as a slow cooker and has two heating elements. There's a slow cook setting as well as a "sear" setting that really gets HOT and browns things nicely. There are several temperature selections and a timer. It's very easy to clean too. All in all I'm very happy with my $44 investment. There are hundreds of customer ratings of this item online. The only major complaint concerns the plastic Tupperware-like cover that comes with the cooker. Users end up putting the cover on while the food is slightly warm and then sticking the cooking container in the fridge. As the food cools it pulls a tremendous vacuum on the cover and then you cant get it off until you run hot water over it. Some of the reviews say people have cut it off with a knife (dumb) and one lady said she was so frustrated that she returned the cooker full of beef stew (more dumb).

So, anyway, this may work for some looking for a slow cooker that can sear foods. A word about Overstock.com...they seem to get a lot of bad press concerning customer service. I haven't purchased a lot from them but the two times I've had a problem they were great. I recently bought another refurbished item, a Wolfgang Puck electric pressure cooker which I like as much as the VersaCooker (and once again was indistinguishable from new). I wanted a white cooker and waited for them to become available. Their ordering screen said "only one left, hurry" but when it arrived it was red. I procrastinated a bit since since for a 7qt cooker the price was under $40 but then decided to email them and complain...nicely of course. At first they said they would send me a prepaid label to return it and of naturally they apologized. I told them it was a real hassel to make a trip to the Post Office and that I'd probably just keep it but I was not a happy camper (actually I kind of liked the red). They again emailed me saying again they apologized for the error, then they credited back my account for the full price and told me to please keep the pressure cooker. I guess a solution couldn't get better than that.

 

[58limited]

I have several crock pots. When I do a pot roast, I just sear it in a cast iron skillet. It is not too much trouble and, since I already have the crock pots, I wouldn't buy a new one with a sear function. Besides, I like using my cast iron. I use it so much that it usually just sits on the stove between uses rather than being put back into the cabinet.

 

[lordkenmore]

I don't have Corning experience so my view here might not be correct. But one concern I have with the "sear and simmer" idea would be cleaning the slow cooker insert. I had a Visions pan years back, and the strongest memory of that pan was how difficult it could be to get it clean sometimes. And I don't think I ever did anything more than sauté onions. Based on that, I'd be a little concerned with the cleanup of the insert.

Past this, I have to wonder how much use the "sear" feature would get with average buyers. I can't really say for sure. But most of the slow cooker users I know seem to basically be interested in keeping it as simple and fast as possible. They want to fling dinner into the cooker, and be done with with it as fast as possible. Like done with it before they even started.

Still, I have to admit it's an interesting idea.

Would I buy one? Probably not. Reasons:
-I am not currently using slow cookers for any cooking. This is subject to change--I don't have any bias against slow cookers. It just seems like I'm turning to the stove.
-I am cheap, and so buying brand new kitchen stuff is of low interest. The only way I'd make an exception is if I can't find what I want used, or if the new item is truly special. A "sear and simmer" slow cooker would be special--but I can get the same end result with my cast iron pan, and a regular slow cooker.
-The likelihood is that this item would made in China. After the six millionth story of lead in the glaze on the news, I decided that nothing Chinese would darken my kitchen again. If the insert is made elsewhere, but the electric parts are Chinese, that might be OK. But I also have concerns about the electric safety of Chinese-made electrical goods.
-To make this product appeal to the masses, it might be made with Teflon coating. This wouldn't get the "sear" results one might get without. But non-stick might be easier to sell. If non-stick, I'd probably pass, since I've phased Teflon out of use in my kitchen.

Even though I don't think this slow cooker idea would work for me, I still think it's an interesting idea. It's sort of a reminder of a different time when products actually did seem to vary, and companies were willing to try something different.