Kitchen

[151949]

When ever I look at a recipe that calls for beef or pork or chicken to be placed into a sauce I am always repulsed if it doesn't say to brown it first. I am NOT talking about ground meat which always has to be browned but - for instance if your going to make something with chicken breasts in a crockpot and it just says to put them in the pot and add ingrediants then cook all day i think when it is done it would look like anemic poached chicken and not be very appetizing. I always brown the meat first in a small amount of oil so it has nice color on it and that browniong also adds flavor .It only takes a few min more and adds so much! Iwas just reading a recipe that said to put steak into the crockpot(raw) and add water and flour and stir til it gets mixed in -in the same amount of time you could flour the meat and fry it til browned and then put in the crockpot and the meat would be so much tastier,and it would thicken the gravy just the same. i also like to think that a piece of meat has begun to cook before it goes into the crockpot because it does cook at pretty low temps.