Is there a better way to shred meat?

[conuly]

Also, why do we have a slow cooker we hardly ever use? Recipes?

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

Try cakes, bread and lasagne...

[affreca]

I'm a fan of pot roast in the slow cooker (with onions, potatoes and carrots, flavored with beef onion soup mix and random umami liquids). The two recipes that I seem to come back to and work well in the slow cooker are pork carnitas and butter chicken.

[kshandra]

There was a viral clip on Twitter last week showing someone using a hand mixer to shred chicken...

[jessie_c]

Are you enquiring about shredding before cooking, or after, because the techniques are a trifle different...

[siderea]

I'm a heathen that just gets two packets of Kitchens of India brand Curry Paste for Butter Chicken, and uses that with 4lbs (I have the big crock pot) of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, 64oz (4 cans) of canned chickpeas, 32oz (2 cans) canned peas, 32oz (2 cans) canned sliced potato, 1lb fresh sliced button mushrooms, 6 Tbsp butter, 1 C water. Melt the butter in a saucepan first, add the water and curry paste and mix into a sauce over low heat; pack everything into the lined slow cooker, and cook 8hrs on low, stirring once the chicken is soft enough to come apart (around the six or seven hour mark). It's done when the chicken disintegrates into shreds or you get tired of cooking it. Makes about 12 servings of about a cup and a quarter each; if you serve it on rice it stretches even further. Freezes great, though when you nuke it, water separates out, but just give it a stir and it's fine.

[siderea]

I can answer two of those three questions at once!

Barbecue pulled pork/chicken

Acquire the largest pork butt(s) ("Pork Blade Boston Butt Roast" or any reasonable facsimile) you can fit in your slow cooker. Alternatively, all the chicken thighs (white meat won't really work) you can fit in there.

In something you can pour from (I use a 2 C measuring cup), mix up:

• almost all of an 18oz bottle of barbecue sauce (I'm partial to Sweet Baby Ray's classic); reserve the bottle, closed, standing on its head to get the rest out later

• 1/2 cup Italian salad dressing (any)

• 1/4 cup brown sugar (dark brown preferred, but any)

* 2 Tbsp (sic! not a typo!) Worcestershire Sauce

Put the meat in the slow cooker - use a liner to make the clean up much easier - and dump the sauce there all over it.

Cook on LOW - you cannot speed this recipe by doing it on high.

At seven hours, dump the rest of the BBQ sauce in there.

Cook for at least 8 hours, until the meat loses structural integrity.

When done, remove all solids from the slow cooker and sort them into edible (meat) and inedible (bones, fat, cartilage). Use forks to gently encourage the meat to disintegrate fully.

Eat however you usually eat pulled pork/pulled chicken.

I know of no easier way to shred meat. You have to start with meat with a high quantity of connective tissue in it, though, and have at least 8 hours to get there. But it shreds itself basically.

ETA: Here's my recipe tag. Most everything in there is a slow cooker recipe.

[conuly]

Yes.

[conuly]

Can you skip the mushrooms y/n?

[siderea]

Absolutely! You can change it up however you like. The only requirements are that if you have the big slow cooker, the taste gets weak if you don't use two packets, and the packets each call for 3 Tbsp of butter; and you need that one cup of water to dissolve the packets. Everything else is completely up to you, switch it up with whatever ingredients you think might be nice in a curry. You can even do a vegetarian version without meat; if you do that, add at least a second cup of water, or maybe more if it's looking dry, because meat expresses a huge amount of fluid in a slow cooker.

[conuly]

Thanks :)

[neotoma]

Well, what way do you currently shred meat, and for what purpose? Generally I just slow cook a pork shoulder until the meat falls off the bone.

hmmm, I've made a lot of soup in my crock pot, including chicken & dumplings, so does that work for you?

[jo]

https://www.lcbo.com/lcbo/recipe/chili-beef-pot-roast-with-corn-peppers/F201801006

This recipe isn't actually a slow cooker recipe, but I don't have an oven-appropriate pot, so I do it in my slow cooker and it works perfectly. I just reduce the liquids a bit. I do it 4-6 hours on high or 8-10 on low. Jon's not a huge beef fan, but he loves this one. I also have a great beef stew recipe, but it's not online. If you're interested, I'll type it up for you.

[jessie_c]

Ah, the mathematician's answer :P

For cooked, I use the two forks method. Stick them in and pull apart. The meat has to be very thoroughly cooked nd ready to fall apart.
Uncooked is more difficult, and I mince rather than shred.

[conuly]

I rarely do shred meat, and it seems to involve a copious amount of forks.

[conuly]

Thanks.

[bitterlawngnome]

If you cook beans for any use (hummus, succotash, chili, refritos, soup ...) the crock pot is an easy way to do it. Just put them in overnight and they're ready to use the next morning.

Chicken soup. One chicken or equivalent parts, some carrots, some celery, some onion, salt, herbs, black pepper, and just put it on high and leave it til the meat falls off the bone. You can do the same with beef or pork bones too, but they benefit from a browning in the oven first.

Apple or plum or apricot butter. Make fruit puree, fill the crock and turn it on high, and leave the lid half off. Stir occasionally. Once it's near the consistency you want add any spices you might like ... powdered cinnamon / ginger / cloves / allspice typically.

Ham & pea soup. Wash a smoked ham hock, put it in the crock with an onion and some black pepper, and cook until the meat is falling off the bone. Take the hock out, and put in some split peas, whichever kind you like, and let them cook to mush. Blender it or not as you prefer. Check for salt. Separate the ham from the bones and add it back in if you like.

[thewayne]

This is an Alton Brown recipe: slow cooker pepper pork chops. I've made it, it's good.

2 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons black peppercorns, slightly crushed
1 pound ice
4 (1 to 1 1/2-inch thick) bone-in pork chops
2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 ounces dried apple slices
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, julienned
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1 teaspoon dried thyme

Directions
Combine the vegetable broth, 1/2 cup kosher salt, brown sugar and peppercorns in a medium saucepan and set over medium-high heat. Cook just until the salt and sugar dissolve, then remove from the heat and add the ice. Place the pork chops into a 2-gallon zip-top bag along with the mixture and seal. Place in a plastic container and refrigerate overnight.

Remove the chops from the brine, rinse, and pat dry. Season on both sides with the kosher salt and set aside

Place the apples in the slow cooker.

Heat 1 1/2 tablespoons of the olive oil in a 12-inch stainless steel saute pan over medium-high heat. Saute the pork chops on both sides until golden brown, approximately 5 to 6 minutes per side. Once browned, place the pork chops into the slow cooker atop the apples.

Add the remaining 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan followed by the onions and saute until they begin to brown, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the chicken broth to the pan to deglaze. Add the black pepper and thyme and stir to combine. Transfer this to the slow cooker, set to high, cover and cook for 1 1/2 hours. Decrease the heat to low and continue cooking for another 4 hours and 30 minutes or until the pork is tender and falling away from the bone.

[gatheringrivers]

The 99% reason we got an Instant Pot: I throw a whole bunch of ingredients in, add broth, close it up and hit either the "soup" or "stew" button, depending, and then walk away until it's done.

Lazy food. Well, quasi-lazy food. It took some effort for me to make the broth originally, and then to home can it for preservation.

(If you have a bog standard slow cooker, then probably cook overnight or something. Been a while since I've used an older style - I wanted the steel inner pot, because all our ceramic ones make stuff taste funny after 24 hours.)

[conuly]

Canning your own anything isn't lazy, you know ;)