Advantages
Cheaper cuts of meat with connective tissue and lean muscle fibre are suitable for stewing, and tastier than stews using expensive cuts, as long slow cooking will soften the connective tissue without toughening the muscle. Slow cooking leaves the gelatinised tissue in the meat, so that it may be advantageous to start with a richer liquid.
The low temperature of slow-cooking makes it almost impossible to burn food even if cooked too long; however, some meats and most vegetables will become nearly tasteless or "raggy" if overcooked.
Food can be set to slow-cook before leaving for the day, and will be ready on return. Some models include timers or thermostats which bring food to a given temperature, and then lower it. With a timerless cooker it is possible to use an external timer to stop cooking after a set time, or both to start and stop.
Cooking the meal in a single pot reduces washing up, and the low cooking temperature and glazed pot make cleaning easy.
Read more about this topic: Slow Cooker
Famous quotes containing the word advantages:
“The advantages found in history seem to be of three kinds, as it amuses the fancy, as it improves the understanding, and as it strengthens virtue.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“A woman might claim to retain some of the child’s faculties, although very limited and defused, simply because she has not been encouraged to learn methods of thought and develop a disciplined mind. As long as education remains largely induction ignorance will retain these advantages over learning and it is time that women impudently put them to work.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)
“When the manipulations of childhood are a little larceny, they may grow and change with the child into qualities useful and admire in the grown-up world. When they are the futile struggle for love and concern and protection, they may become the warped and ruthless machinations of adults who seek in the advantages of power what they could never win as children.”
—Leontine Young (20th century)