Steamer
A steamer is a device used to steam food. Steaming is a cooking technique in which raw food is cooked under steam . Steam ovens have only been around as a kitchen appliance in Europe since the 1920s, although the method of preparation has existed for centuries and is particularly traditional in Far Eastern cuisine.
Steam cooking
Basically, a distinction must be made between steam cooking at ambient pressure (so-called "pressureless" steam cooking or steaming) and pressure steam cooking. With pressureless steam cooking, the food to be cooked is exposed to the steam of boiling water at ambient pressure. The cooking temperature is 100 ° C. With pressure steam cooking, the boiling water and the food to be cooked form a system that is closed off from the environment; the boiling water leads to a pressure increase within the system. As a rule, the pressure is limited to 2 bar; at this pressure the water boils at 120 ° C. The higher steam temperature is the reason for the shorter cooking times of pressure steaming compared to steaming at ambient pressure.
Cooking over rising steam is an ancient Chinese method of preparation. The hot steam flows onto the food and surrounds it on all sides. This leaves water-soluble nutrients such as B. minerals and water-soluble vitamins ( vitamins of the B group and vitamin C ) for the most part in the food and hardly go into the cooking liquid compared to cooking.
This knowledge was not limited to Asia. In Asian cookshops there are stackable bamboo baskets piled up over water-filled woks as well as steamed dishes, in antiquity the thermopolium , and in the West a pot of water has long been placed in the oven so that the roast does not dry out or bread has a brown, shiny crust receives. All of this makes use of the basics of steam or steam cooking. In the meantime, household appliances specially tailored to these purposes are increasingly replacing these traditional methods.
Steamers
In 1927 the pressure cooker of today's design (a pressure steamer system) came onto the market, which experienced a real boom in the 1970s and 1980s .
Electric steamers
In the 1990s, in the wake of the increasing interest in Asian and especially Chinese cuisine, electric steamers with stackable steam baskets came onto the market, which are supposed to simplify the laborious and time-consuming preparation of Asian dishes, such as dim sum , but also for gentle preparation and heating other dishes are suitable. At the same time, these steamers can also be used as rice cookers .
In the classic, electric, pressureless steam cooker, a heated water bowl supplies two or more plastic inserts stacked on top of one another with steam via a perforated base. There is an unperforated attachment for rice or to warm up food. With the steamers of this type you can prepare two to a maximum of three portions at the same time. More modern, non-commercial pressureless steamers are separated into a steam generator and a cooking space for gastro-norm containers (1/3 or 1/2 GN) and allow up to 3 containers to be cooked at the same time. Pressureless devices for professional use take 1/1 GN containers on several levels (mostly 4–16) and can also supply the cooking space with hot air.
System steamer
The so-called system steamers are a step up from the electric steam oven: Complete menus for the whole family can be prepared in retrofit steamers for a normal oven. The steam is generated by setting the bottom heat in the oven. Retrofitting the ovens is usually relatively expensive.
Steam oven
Large quantities of food can be prepared with a steam oven and they are suitable for steaming, stewing or blanching fresh food, for heating food and for defrosting ready-made meals and frozen products. The new devices offer various technical refinements. B. the program control automatically adjusted to the different boiling temperature of the water depending on the altitude of the place of residence. There are devices that work according to the low-temperature cooking method (70 to 80 ° C) in that they do not let the 100 ° C steam come into contact with the food continuously but rather in bursts ( pulse width modulated ) and others that allow combined cooking with hot air and steam. Combi steamers, which have also been equipped with a sous vide program, are new . To use it, all ingredients are vacuum-sealed in a bag and then cooked with steam at low temperatures. The costs of such devices are significantly higher than those of conventional ovens. You either need a permanent water connection or have a mobile water tank that has to be filled before steam operation.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ E. Schlich, M. Schlich: Cooking methods for plant-based foods and their influence on micronutrients - Part 1. In: ErnährUmschau. (60) 8, 2013, pp. S31-S34.
- ↑ E. Schlich, M. Schlich: Cooking methods for plant-based foods and their influence on micronutrients - Part 2. In: ErnährUmschau. (60) 9, 2013, pp. S35-S38.