Slow Cooker Comfort Food
Female: Welcome to Le Gourmet TV. Today, we’re lucky enough to meet
with Judith Finlayson, who has produced the Slow Cooker
Comfort Food, and you know, comfort food.
Judith Finlayson: Comfort food.
Female: That’s a great choice.
Judith Finlayson: I'm not saying better for recessionary times. Comfort food is feel
good food and it makes you feel good because it's usually
associated with some very pleasant memory. Remember pièce de
résistanceso it is usually hardy dishes that you remember like
you’re grandmother used to make soups, stews, chilies, its different
things for different people. For me, whose background is kind of
Irish-Canadian, North American, it seems like baked beans, beef
stew, chicken soup. If you’re Italian, it's a dish like we’re going to
make today, the Italian chicken with potatoes which is a very
simple stew.
But what it is, it’s particularly relevant I think for these
recessionary times because it's generally inexpensive that use as
less expensive cuts of me like stewing beef, lamb shanks and so
on. Short ribs and short ribs in a Slow Cooker look fabulous. Our
dried beans and things like whole grains, so it's very cost effective.
And in recessionary times, high cost equals high stress.
Female: This is our low stress.
Judith Finlayson: And there is no better appliance to produce it than the slow cooker
because you get your food into the slow cooker, you go out and do
whatever it is you need to for to day. And when you come home,
you are greeted by the most wonderful aroma of what has been
cooking all day and you know you really do forget that you
actually did work at one point.
Female: All is forgiven.
Judith Finlayson: It is.
Female: So to speak. What are we making today?
Judith Finlayson: Well, we’re making an Italian style chicken with potatoes, and it is
a really easy dish to make and very inexpensive. We’re going to
use chicken thighs and I like to use chicken thighs in the slow
cooker because they do not dry out. We have the bone in because
the bone is going to contribute to the taste in our sauce and we’ve
taken the skin off because we don’t want. You can actually buy
them de-skinned as well.
We don’t want skin or fat. We’re going to cut down on the fat
that’s in here. We don’t even have to brown this, that’s one of the
benefits using chicken thighs. They just cook out very nicely in the
slow cooker if you put them by yourself
Female: They’re just sitting right on the bottom.
Judith Finlayson: They are.
Female: Now if removing the fat and the skin is a health conscious decision
about the fat.
Judith Finlayson: Yes, absolutely. It's also I think the taste conscious decision
because you don’t want a lot of you know a kind of greasy film
floating on your dish. We are going to add a little bit of fat later in
the form some olive oil because that’s a very healthy fat and it
adds flavors as well.
So we have put in some potatoes that we’ve chopped up. Here, we
just have salt pepper, oregano and some garlic and we’re just going
to sprinkle that over our chicken, and potatoes. So just a can of
tomatoes and I don’t use a lot of canned stuff in the cooking, but I
certainly always have lots of canned tomatoes. They are great
convenience food and for most of the year, the tomatoes taste
much better in the can than they do, if you buy them fresh.
They are also terrifically convenient. You know these are diced,
they just open the can for them and they create a lot of the
wonderful flavor in a broth. I’m going to drizzle it with a little
olive oil because that helps to keep everything moist and to keep it
from drying out. Then we’re going to put our lid on and we’re
going to turn it on for six hours. So we just set out timer to six.
We’re going to turn it to low so we’re out of the house. So, that’s
all that is.
Female: And just like that, so six hours later. I come back and --
Judith Finlayson: Six hours later and you come back.
Female: And dinner would be ready.
Judith Finlayson: You want to see what you have? What we have is a lovely --
Female: Actually, it has a wonderful smell to it. You’re right, it is very –
I’ll just switch the others get out of your way.
Judith Finlayson: If your – you know arriving home, we’re going to take this out and
then show how to finish it. Before I take it out, I'm going to stir in.
This gives you a little bit of spice. This is cayenne pepper and I’ve
dissolved in lemon juice.
Female: Okay.
Judith Finlayson: And the reason I that the lemon juice has a nice, little bit of flavor
to this, a little bit of acid. But I’ve done that because it prevents it
from clamping when you add it to your dish. So it’s just a little
trick, you get it in there. It’s evenly distributed throughout the dish.
I'm going to show you how good this is. Look at these chicken
thighs just kind of falling off the bone, a delicious very delicious
sauce.
Now all you’d really want to serve with this is maybe a green
vegetable like some green beans, some nice, crusty bread. And
then we garnish with the pièce de résistance, a little parsley and a
little olive. And there you go.
Female: That’s great. Thank you so much. That’s smells wonderful. I look
forward to maybe tasting it in a few moments.
Judith Finlayson: Yes absolutely.
Female: So thank you everyone for stopping by La Gourmet TV and check
it out on this – Check it out again, we’ve got the Slow Cooker
Comfort Food with Judith Finlayson.
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