We’re thinking of getting either one of those multi-cookers or else just a good ol’ slow cooker. Any tips on sizes or good, reliable brands? Thanks.
I grew up with a stainless steel Datong double layer rice cooker (pot within pot design, should come with steaming pan) and it still works almost 30 years later. Get a biggish one so you can fit large amounts of food/rice easily; I got the ten-cup size. It’ll come with its own sizeable inner pot, but you should also get a smaller inner pot for cooking smaller amounts of rice.
The simpler the control the better. I know there’s a new one out with a fancy little panel design, but the classic switch design is still king, and it’s much louder when it “jumps.” The simpler it is, the fewer things can go wrong.
Bonus: they come in nice colors. Mine is bright pink and brightens up the whole kitchen 
edit: here’s mine
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Dowai is popular brand and reasonably priced. Good selection too.
Yes, we have the reddish-orange Tatung electric cooker, which we love. But, we’re specifically looking for a slow cooker.
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I think I’ve seen these Dowai ones in restaurants. What are they like for reliability, durability, & longevity?
I’ve had one for about five years. It’s simple, four settings, off, keep warm, low, and high. No problems so far.
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Bought a slow cooker a year ago from the states. It does its job well, but in hindsight I wish I had purchased an instant pot instead. Look into that.
We have considered it. The Instant Pot brand isn’t available here. Most pressure cookers, Philips or Panasonic, are around NT$7,000. We’ll go with a slow cooker for now, but will keep a multi-cooker in the back of our minds.
This one ships to Taiwan from Amazon. Total cost including shipping and import fees is under $5,000NT
Sorry, I won’t buy from Amazon. And I’m not big on buying electrical appliances from other countries for warranty reasons. I will keep Instant Pot in mind, though. Just not this time round.
We bought the Dowai DT-500. I’m assuming it acts like any standard slow cooker. Do you find you have to make any adjustments to the cooking time of recipes you find on the internet?
What are some of the more adventurous things people on here have cooked with their slow cookers?
I forget the brand of slow cooker I bought here - I’ll have a look when I get home. But for that brand, I’ve found the “slow / low” level is really low and doesn’t seem to work with plenty of recipes (ten hours later and beans are still hard - that kind of thing); the “fast / high” level has worked fine for it, with cooking times typically in the 4-5 hour range.
Costco and to a lesser extent Carrefour are good places to go for the cuts of meat used in many slow cooker recipes; iHerb provides a better variety of dried beans than you can find here.
My favorite is far from adventurous - a pulled pork recipe that, seeing as how my wife is vegetarian, gives me sandwiches for months.
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I am looking at cast iron skillets from this company and also found what appears to be an “instant pot” type muti-cooker.
If you put a rack and some water in the bottom, then use an insert pot with lid, you can make a variety of steamed cakes, puddings, etc.
Thanks.
Anyone ever try to cook whole tomatoes for pasta sauce, where you cook the pasta at the very end using up the excess water from the tomatoes? How about a good recipe for pork meatballs or meatloaf? Bread? Lasagne? I see lots of recipes on the internet I’m planning on trying, but we’re often limited by the availability of ingredients here.
Is that a thing? I’d have thought a slow cooker will be at too low a temperature to boil pasta. I’m looking at one ziti recipe I’ve got now, and it has the pasta cooking in the slow cooker with everything else for three hours.
For me the point of making pasta sauce in a slow cooker is to make a HUGE amount, and then put it in individual containers to use later. One day of cooking, a dozen or more servings of pasta.
Kindle edition of Amazon Test Kitchen’s Complete Slow Cooker is currently around USD$21 for me (price will vary depending on your “Kindle country”). It has lots of ideas.
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Slow-Cooker-Appetizers-Must-Have-ebook/dp/B06XR16RBB/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1536036039&sr=8-1&keywords=America’s+test+kitchen+slow+cooker
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Apparently the pasta thing is doable, but cooking times depend on what pasta you’re using. I haven’t seen enough people doing it, though, so I’m still researching it.
The Book Depository has that slow-cooker book also (sorry, I won’t buy from Amazon). However, I’m sticking to blogs and YouTube for now. I may pick up one book if it’s the definitive slow-cooker book. Are there any good discussion forums (not Facebook groups) for slow cookers?
While I’m at it, does anyone have any recommendations for good beans for chili (not canned ones, though)?
I’ve added couscous in the last 10 minutes or so of cooking, and that’s technically pasta. I think I’ve added rice too, so the smaller kinds of pasta may be OK.
That book I linked to is a combination of three or four earlier slow cooker books from America’s Test Kitchen. There’s a lot in there.
Almost all the beans I use are bought through iHerb: navy beans, black beans, cannellini beans, French lentils. If I recall correctly, dried chickpeas, pintos, and red kidney beans are relatively easy to find here - the black ones you see are soy beans, NOT the beans of Mexican cooking! Trinity Indian may be the best local source of dry beans (assuming you’re in Taipei).
You’ll probably see “canned crushed tomatoes” in recipes fairly often. I believe those aren’t currently available here - just throw a can of diced tomatoes in a blender. The consistency is quite different from what you’d get with canned whole tomatoes in a blender, never mind tomato sauce.
“Hearty greens” (kale, Swiss chard, etc.) are one of the things I’ve never quite figured out in Taiwan - most of the greens here are in an annoying-to-me middle ground where they’re great for stir-frying, but not strong enough for stews (or slow-cooker style dishes), and not light enough for salads. There’s that giant leafy vegetable that shows up in markets around Chinese New Year, and I suspect that’d work, but I’ve been so scared by eating it at CNY dinners that I’ve never dared try cooking with it myself.
As I said upthread, make sure when you’re cooking, you taste once in a while, especially for doneness of beans - the times in your slow cooker may not match the recipes. Not a big deal, but you’ll need to learn to adjust. Don’t, for example, discover at 5pm that the beans you’ve been cooking all day are nowhere near ready, even though you’ve got guests coming for dinner at 6pm. Not that I’ve done that or anything.
Re: Amazon: if you don’t want to buy from them because they’re a possibly evil giant company, I get that, but I love having Kindle cookbooks that I can then read on my computer, phone, tablet, etc. - makes searching easy.
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Organic, canned, crushed tomatoes are available in 6-packs at Costco, Kirkland Signature. They’re very good.
I stopped using my Philips pressure cooker/slow-cooker in May when the weather turned hot because I always lose all desire to cook indoors during the summer. I’ll probably take it up again next month, or whenever the weather turns cooler.
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Huh. Cool - I’ve seen the diced tomatoes and tomato paste and tomato sauce and stewed tomatoes (never been too sure what those are for - I hardly ever see them appear in recipes), but never noticed the crushed tomatoes. Thanks!
I hope the canned fire-roasted diced tomatoes have reappeared in Carrefour. Man I go through a lot of those. But they disappear for months at a time. (The Costco diced tomatoes are my second choice.)