This is one beast of a slow cooker! (Morphy Richards 48715 Slow Cooker)

Member Name: sakura8

Product:	Morphy Richards 48715 Slow Cooker
Date:	16/07/09 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very large capacity, good value

Disadvantages: Temperature too hot even on low

During my cooking course I've been living with my brother, who usually lives alone in a typical bachelor pad.

His oven doesn't work so I've been a bit limited to what I can cook. Luckily he has a slow cooker, so I could him one of my favourite dishes, Thai Massaman Curry.

I have only recently got into slow cooking and I have been using my Tefal 4-in-1 to slow cook. His Morphy Richards is simply a slow cooker, so using it was a bit different for me..

This model of slow cooker is absolutely huge! I've no idea why my brother chose this massive model, as he lives alone and is hardly the type to plan ahead and cook a large batch and freeze some. I guess it's just the typical male mentality to buy the biggest product available and not consider whether it's appropriate to his needs (I make no apologies for this sexist statement because you know it's true!).

The capacity is 6.5 litres, so even though I'd doubled the quantity of my curry recipe (to feed 6), it only filled the cooking vessel by about a third. The cooking vessel is oval in shape and it is very heavy, I would say on a par with a small cast iron dish. The cooking vessel can be brought straight to the table and it is also dishwasher proof, which is a bonus, but I think you would be hard pressed to fit it in!

The main difference of this slow cooker to my Tefal is it has various temperature settings: low, medium and high. I'd prepared my curry the night before we wanted to eat it and the following morning I put it into the slow cooker and cooked it on low all day whilst we were out. I did bring the curry to boiling point in a pan before putting it into the slow cooker, but then I realised that I could have set the temperature to high to do this (and saved myself another pan to wash up!). This is the advantage of having various temperature settings and something I wish my Tefal had.

However, even though I'd set the cooker on low, the heat was really quite fierce and when I got home the meat had dried out a little bit. I hadn't added much liquid because I'd based the amount of liquid on my Tefal, which produces a gentle heat, so luckily I came home earlier than I anticipated, otherwise I think the meat would have started to burn!

I did manage to salvage my curry, but the texture of the meat was a little dry because of the intense heat. In my opinion, this slow cooker does not slow cook. Using it on the low temperature is more like boiling, whereas I believe it should be barely a simmer. There isn't a keep warm function, but there was enough residual heat to keep my curry hot for 2 hours so I didn't need to reheat it for serving.

Because of the high temperature I don't think it's ideal for cooking small quantities of food, therefore it might be better suited to large families or those who like to cook in bulk.

I also found that the outside of the stainless steel unit was quite hot to the touch, although it does have 'cooltouch' handles, so it is possible to pick it up and move it around. The toughened glass lid did its job by not allowing any heat to escape and although it does help that you can see through the glass, the condensation that accumulates does obscure your view.

Overall I think this is a fairly decent slow cooker for the price (currently around £26 on Amazon) and it is relatively cheap to run at 350 watts. I think with all slow cookers it does take a while to perfect recipes and a bit of trial and error is necessary. However, I am not in the least bit jealous that my brother owns this, as I'm perfectly happy with my Tefal 4-in-1!

Summary: Bigger is not always better!