The power of steam (part 2)

In part one of this series, we looked about how steam can help you clean your clothes better, you can read that post right here. But what about your kitchen? After all, human kind has used steam to cook food for over 5000 years.

Steaming in today's world has become increasingly convenient and no longer consists of setting something over boiling water to cook it. One of the best innovation in recent years has been the steam oven which usually features convection and steam to add to your cooking experience, allowing you to cook more than vegetables.

New ranges like this model from Thermador can include a conventional oven with and a steam oven for more convenience

The many benefits include:

Healthier Cooking: When meat is steamed the fat separates itself from the meat and drips into the baking pan. Using steam also helps by preventing the need to add oil to your pans to prevent food from sticking, making for a leaner, better tasting meal.

Barely Any Loss :  When steamed, food is not immersed in water, so therefore vitamins and minerals do not leach out. There have been multiple studies that have shown certain vegetables can loose up to 50% of their vitamin content when immersed in water for cooking.

Great looking dishes :  One of the downside of grilling is that food changes color or can get crusty on the outside. Cooking with steam helps prevent that and allows for foods to retain their natural color. Because the cooking also happens more evenly through your whole dish, you eliminate the need to stir or turn the food around, preventing a delicate piece of fish to break down as an example.

Flavour, flavour and more flavour :  Part of eating healthy is removing salt from our diet. Just as steaming maintains the vitamin content in your food, it also allows for all the taste to stay in, eliminating the need to add salt to get a flavorful dish.

Cook a whole meat at once :  Cooking with steam allows you to cook several components at the same time, without the flavors mixing. Cookies and fish can now be cooked at the same time without any transferring of flavors, saving you time while being more energy efficient.

Steam cooking allows for multiple dishes to be cooked at once

Reheating :  Forget about guessing how long something will take in the microwave to reheat. The line between hot enough and bone dry seems like it's only a second long and more often than sometimes, you end up eating dried up leftovers. Using steam, you can reheat food without losing the original dish’s moisture, textures, and flavors.

Have more questions about steam ovens and steam cooking? Visit Creative Appliance Gallery and talk to us about how easy it is to change your cooking habits with the proper appliance.