Steam Oven Recipes with Guaranteed Results
When you begin cooking with an unfamiliar appliance, reliable guidance is crucial in order to achieve success.
Steam ovens were initially developed for high-end restaurants so that chefs could balance heat and humidity to achieve specific results. My role as a culinary educator in the appliance industry for the past 24 years has been to make the oven easily accessible to clients interested in cooking with this technology. Needless to say, most people were looking to cook foods they were already cooking but needed guidance to take advantage of the benefits of cooking with steam and convection.
While you will find a comprehensive selection of recipes here at Convection Kitchen, you may be surprised to see them broken into categories that describe the cooking method. The easiest way to understand how the oven functions is to break it down into categories such as Steaming, Roasting, Baking, and Low-Temperature Cooking.
Steaming is easy to understand. Basically, anything you usually cook in a saucepan with water can be steamed in the steam oven in uncovered containers. Water boils at 212 F, which is the default setting for this mode. Since there is no transfer of flavors when different foods are cooked simultaneously, you can easily cook several items at one time, you just have to pay attention to the timing. You may be surprised as you review the recipes in the Salads, Veggies, Seafood, and Breakfast categories to see how many different foods can be cooked in this mode.
When it comes to baking and roasting in a steam oven, it's important to note that steam ovens have much smaller cavities than a standard oven, and most recipes are written for larger ovens. Timing, temperature, and tips on using steam + convection are crucial to achieving good results. After all, there is no point in following a recipe for roast turkey that says the cooking time will be 3 - 4 hours if a 10 - 14lb turkey cooks in 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 hours in a steam oven.
Low-temperature cooking can be done in any oven, but the results that can be achieved in a steam oven are exceptional. Learning to cook lean, tender cuts of meat, fish, and poultry in this mode will transform your cooking and also make it easier for you to orchestrate the cooking of multiple foods at one time.
In short, Convection Kitchen is not just a recipe resource; our recipes are tailored to guide you to success when cooking with your steam oven. Once you have the technique and timing down, you can vary the ingredients and seasoning to suit your preference, but tried-and-true recipes are a great place to begin.
