What a 🐊 Crock (Pot)!

The venerable slow cooker turns 50 — and delivers a tasty beef stew!

My rediscovered Crock-Pot.

I’m not particularly sentimental about my Crock-Pot.

Until I learned this week on NPR that the Crock-Pot was celebrating its 50th anniversary, I’d forgotten all about this slow cooking relic; it sat gathering dust on the top shelf of my pantry closet. I was far more taken with my 6-quart Instant Pot Duo with its multiple functions, including pressure cooking, slow cooking, sautéing, yogurt-making, and even “baking” a cheesecake. If only it sprouted arms and legs, cooked dinner for us and washed up afterwards, I would be one happy ex home cook!

Alas, this won’t happen, and, to be honest, I do like to cook most of the time, usually on the stovetop without the aid of labor-saving devices. But the story about the Crock-Pot reignited my interest.

Introduced by Kansas City, MO-based Rival Manufacturing Co. at the National Housewares Show in Chicago in 1971, it was billed as “a miraculous timesaving device.” But its roots were apparently even older than that. A precursor called the Naxon Beanery was first dreamed up by inventor Irving Naxon.

He was inspired, at least in part, by stories his immigrant mother told about a slow-cooked stew of meat, beans and vegetables called cholent that the Jewish women of Vilna prepared in time for the sabbath and left to cook overnight in the town bakeries’ bread ovens (that had been turned off but still held residual heat) so as not to violate laws against doing any work (including cooking) on Shabbat.

Naxon, who changed his name from Nachumsohn during World War II, was an engineer and prolific inventor, who also came up with an electric frying pan and precursors to the lava lamp and the scrolling newsfeed.

Unfortunately, the Naxon Beanery, initially known only as a “Cooking Apparatus” when the inventor first filed for a patent in 1936, didn’t really take off — that is, until Naxon sold it to Rival Manufacturing in 1970. Rival soon realized the device could cook a lot more than cholent and beans, according to a 2019 article in Smithsonian Magazine.

“Dubbed the Crock-Pot, the appliance received a new name, refreshed appearance and a booklet of professionally-tested recipes. Home cooks eagerly brought their Crock-Pots home, in distinctly ’70s hues like Harvest Gold and Avocado. Advertising campaigns, along with word of mouth, drove sales from $2 million in 1971 to an astounding $93 million four years later.”

I can’t for the life of me remember how I acquired my Crock-Pot — possibly on sale at Target, only to be used once or twice, then packed away. Unfortunately, I’ve got a bad habit of purchasing sale-priced cooking paraphernalia that then end up gathering dust after I lose interest or get scared off by longwinded user manuals — or, worse yet, none at all! Anyone else have this problem?

But the thing about the Crock-Pot is that it’s really not that complicated. Fill with chopped meat, vegetables and liquid; cover and turn knob to low or high setting; plug in and come back four or eight hours later — and your dinner is ready! Unlike my antiquated model, newer versions have a third function to keep the food warm, and some of the fancier Crock-Pots have digital displays and automated settings. But, for the most part, they’re pretty similar to the original model of 50 years ago — stoneware crocks with glass lids that fit inside stainless steel containers that plug into the wall.

These days they’re relatively economical — I found a 4.5-quart model on sale at Target for $19.99. One thing that’s appealing to me is that it’s so simple that, compared to the multiple buttons on an Instant Pot, for example, you really don’t need an instruction manual to figure it out. Of course, it doesn’t do all the wonderful things that an IP does. But then, again, neither of them washes dishes!

Braised beef, vegetables and fresh herbs in the Crock-Pot awaiting the heat.

Enough talk — time to fill the crock!

An enduring childhood memory is of my mother braising chunks of meat and vegetables on the stove for a beef stew. It was one of her signature dishes, and the rich smell of it usually brought me into the kitchen to peer beneath the lid into the sizzling black-handled frying pan as Mom swept handfuls of chopped onions, carrots and potatoes into the stew.

As a teen, when I thought her choice of seasonings too bland, I’d rummage among her spices to sprinkle in a little of this or that. Later, my mother would deliver the stew to the table with the caveat, “If it’s too spicy, it’s Ruth’s doing.” I can’t remember if it ever was.

I don’t have Mom’s beef stew recipe — I doubt there was one. I’ve made it many a time without a recipe — it’s just one of those dishes you can easily put together on top of the stove using a combination of meat and vegetables. If you don’t like white potatoes, use sweet potatoes, yams or butternut squash. If you like rutabagas, add them. If you want to make it vegetarian, leave out the beef!

Here’s a basic stovetop recipe for Old-Fashioned Beef Stew from the New York Times. I decided to make a Crock-Pot version because, other than cholent, it seemed like the perfect thing to make in a slow cooker. It’s also the ultimate in comfort food-and who doesn’t need that right now?

Here’s the recipe I used as a template for the Crock-Pot version: Slow Cooker Beef Stew.

Beef stew after eight hours of slow-cooking.

From the picture on her blog, Damn Delicious, it looks like the author made her stew in an Instant Pot on the slow cooker setting — perfectly doable! She made it during a hot spell in Los Angeles, more and more likely in this part of the world, even when the calendar says it’s fall or winter. That’s another reason for opting for a Crock-Pot or a different slow cooker. It doesn’t turn your kitchen into a blast furnace! I’m beginning to think my Crock-Pot may stay permanently dusted off!

Beef stew on a bed of white rice with a cilantro garnish.

Variations, additions & substitutions to Slow Cooker Beef Stew recipe

1. Instead of baby red potatoes, I used chunks of 2 peeled russets.
2. I subbed a cup of red wine for a cup of beef bouillon. You could use white wine, no wine or low-sodium chicken broth or vegetable broth.
3. I browned the chopped onions in some of the juices left from the braised beef for about five minutes before adding them to the Crock-Pot.
4. I subbed sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary for the dried and added a few sprinkles each of other dried herbs, including Italian seasoning, garam masala, and Aleppo pepper.
5. You could add other root vegetables, squashes, peas, canned or cooked beans, and even some chopped dried or fresh fruit-for example, I’m thinking chopped sweet potato and dried apricots for a sweeter flavor profile.
6. If you want to make the stew gluten-free, use cornstarch or potato starch in place of flour to thicken the sauce. I mixed about 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with pan juices, plus extra water, stirred until I got a smooth paste, and added it to the stew during the last half hour of cooking.
7. I like to serve beef stew over white rice or pasta to soak up the plentiful gravy. A garnish of chopped cilantro is both pretty and tasty.
8. Although I haven’t tried this, I do think this stew could be made vegetarian or vegan with root vegetables, cooked beans or lentils, and vegetable broth. Perhaps you wouldn’t have to cook it quite so long without the meat. This may be my next experiment with the Crock-Pot! Stay tuned!

Do you have a Crock-Pot, old or new? Do you still use it or have you traded it in for an Instant Pot? If you have either, what recipes do you like to make in a slow cooker? I’d love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading the latest edition of Ruth Talks Food. If there are other topics or recipes you’d like me to cover, please let me know. And, if you enjoy the newsletter, press “like,” leave a comment, and share with a friend. And, of course, if you’re not a subscriber, please sign up. It does help me know you’re out there.

See you next time!

Originally published at https://ruthtalksfood.substack.com on September 27, 2021.