Eating healthy without sacrificing taste is possible. A cooking system that is particularly useful for maintaining the taste and color of the raw materials we cook, from vegetables to fish, is steam cooking. The result is a kitchen suitable for everyone, adults and children, good but healthy because no seasonings are used and the preparations are seasoned only once put on the plate, with extra virgin olive oil, salt and lemon to taste.
The steamed kitchen is dietetic, non-greasy, keeps the substances in the food and allows you to cook different ingredients at the same time on different levels.
The steamer in the kitchen is a very useful accessory, which has several variations by definition. There is the possibility of steaming on stoves, using grids that separate meat, fish and vegetables from the water needed to create steam for cooking.
These grids can be placed inside pressure cookers or in normal pots that will be closed with their lid. The steam inside the pot will cook the food for the necessary and desired time.
But there are electric steam generators, which connect to the socket developed on multiple levels in a manner to be cooked at the same time the first, second courses of meat and fish, side dishes, rice, ravioli and more.
In this way we will have ready many portions of different foods, to be consumed during family dinner or in more ready-to-use meals that will only be heated when consumed.
In addition to the electric steam generators and gas steam generators we can also mention the steam in bamboo or bamboo steamer, indispensable accessory in oriental cookers, healthy and not fat.
Foods with the heat of steam are cooked inside special baskets.
Since the time available to prepare dishes is increasingly limited, we are also talking about quick and functional microwave steamers.
Potential of the steamed kitchen
As evidence of the excellent results obtained by steaming, let us remember that in recent years steam ovens have become very popular. The dishes cooked thanks to the steam are, as mentioned, healthy but also tasty, rich in flavor, cooked in a uniform and light, very digestible and you can indulge yourself with many different types of preparations.
We can steam-cook dishes of our culinary tradition or try out some types of kitchens in the world, especially the oriental, refined and tasty ones.
One of the main advantages of steam cooking it lies precisely in the lack of water, boiling, or oil and other seasonings, browning or even frying.
Water or fats do not serve here as a vehicle for heat, but the dishes are still well cooked and give off their natural aroma.
Steam cooking, let’s remember, can be done either in a steam cooker, normal, at pressure or at low temperature using appropriate accessories, or steaming at room temperature with the steamers, of whatever type they are.
The heat from the outside reaches the inside, substances such as salts and vitamins are not dispersed and with steam, even the most delicate raw materials are respected, such as the tender meat of fish, including crustaceans, in respect of taste and organoleptic characteristics, of healthy appearance, with natural coloration maintained, as is well known especially for vegetables, making a comparison with the boiled ones. Even frozen foods can be steamed without having to thaw them first.
Types of steam and operation
Each can find, according to their own tastes but also for reasons of space in the kitchen, the steam cooker that best suits their needs.
Here is a brief guide to the different types of steamer …
Electric steamer
Examples of electrical steam generators at several levels that enable cooking also simultaneously of different foods are the steamer for cooking rice, meat, fish and vegetables.
The ingredients cook quickly and the capacity is able to satisfy even the needs of the whole family, ranging between variety of colorful and healthy proposals, suitable for adults, the elderly, children and those on a diet.
Bamboo steamer
Bamboo, natural, ecological and oriental-derived steamers work very well, ideal for cooking rice, vegetables, chicken, meat and fish of various types in a sweet way.
Rice, the basis of many kitchens in the world, can be cooked and served as a first course but also as a side dish for a varied, colorful, healthy and complete dish.
They develop on two or three levels. The bamboo baskets can also be used to bring dishes to the table once they are ready. Cleaning should be done by hand after each use.
Obviously, inside the gas steamer traditional or in bamboo we can also cook shrimp ravioli, meat or vegetable ravioli or even cook rice with steamer: from basmati to jasmine, from venere rice to couscous, everything will have another flavor.
It is advisable to use this steamer by placing the food on cabbage leaves.
The steam cooking baskets are stacked, topped by a lid and then placed on a pot of the same diameter inside which a quantity of water necessary for cooking is boiled.
Microwave steamer
Finally also we signal the increasingly widespread presence of accessories suitable for the microwave and designed to cook foods to steam in to this type of furnace.
Thus the preparation times are shortened and the traditional oven or stove must not be lit. Even those who have little time to cook but don’t want to give up eating healthy, low-calorie and seasoned meals have the right to prepare what they want steamed.
Just have a microwave oven and insert a special microwave steamer inside it or many other models on the market, which is nothing but a plastic container with a bottom where to put water and a lid.
