Steaming

Steaming is a particularly gentle method of cooking in steam under atmospheric pressure at temperatures up to 100 ° C. For steaming are particularly suitable tender vegetables, grains and low-fat fish, but also tender meat and potatoes.

For steaming you need apart from a pot with a fitting lid steamer insert, which keeps the food from the underlying water. Such inserts are offered as a wire or metal baskets, in Chinese tradition, also made ​​of bamboo. When steaming, only so much water in the pot may be that it also does not reach the food cooking. The pot is closed with a lid resting. After heating up to the boiling point of water (100 ° C) of the resulting water vapor displaces the air contained, to the lid outlet vapor. Then, the heating must be switched back. In the cooking pot itself, there saturated steam atmosphere.

Different Steamers are increasingly being offered for households, which can be performed both as an inexpensive tabletop device with integrated heating and timer as well as in the form of high-quality built-in appliances with automatic cooking and digital temperature and time display.

In the catering and combi steamers are used for steaming larger quantities.

By dampening soft on the cell walls and fibers, the protein coagulates and the strength swells. For meat, also the tough collagen is broken down, but what can be several hours necessary. The advantage of steaming over boiling is that hardly flavorings are lost from the food, but then removed the flavors of spices and herbs and are absorbed by the food. The vapors of potatoes and vegetables receive the water-soluble (hydrophilic) such as micronutrients the minerals and vitamin C almost completely inside the food. The fat-soluble ( lipophilic ) micronutrients such as Provitamin A ( beta- carotene ) and vitamin E ( tocopherol) are released from the cell matrix by steaming the vegetables and are thus available only for human consumption is available. Meat can be seared briefly before steaming, to obtain any additional roasting substances. In recipes cooking times given are from the steam outlet, ie without the time required to heat up.

Related to the vapors is cooking in a pressure cooker. However, steam temperatures are due to the hermetic closure of the cooking vessel it reaches about 120 ° C, which considerably shortens the cooking time.

If the food is in direct contact with the liquid, thus lies partly in the water, this is called braising.