Get to know Steam Ovens with Cooking With Steam

With Combi Steam Ovens becoming a more popular choice of oven, we recently caught up with Paul from Cooking With Steam to find out why more and more people are choosing to add a Combi Steam Ovens into their home and how you can benefit from purchasing an ASKO Combi-Steam Oven.

e&s: What was your first experience like using Steam Ovens?

CWS: Having worked in professional commercial kitchens for 20+ years, I have been fortunate enough to have had many years experience with steam and combi cooking (although on a much larger scale). What impressed me most about the ASKO “Elements” Combi Steam Oven upon first use was the accuracy of the temperature. Low temperature steaming is a cooking process I value and promote whenever possible. I know that when I set an Elements oven for 52˚C, I’ll get precisely that temperature.

e&s: How does the running costs of cooking with steam compare with a traditional oven?

CWS: The best way to address this is to look at something as simple as pre-heating your oven. Traditional ovens can take up to 15-20 minutes to pre-heat. Both the “Elements” Combi Steam and Pyrolitic Ovens can reach a temperature of 200˚C in approx 5 minutes, thus saving power and reducing energy consumption. Steam, by comparison, is even faster. Consider the time required to boil a pot of water, even before adding your ingredients. You can either steam or blanch vegetables in an “Elements” steam oven and be at 100˚C full steam in no time at all.

e&s: What kind of things can you cook in a steam oven?

CWS: This is probably the most frequently asked question I hear. The obvious things are vegetables, fish and chicken. Steam cooking, however, is certainly not limited to those few options. At Cooking with Steam, we’ve devoted hours, days and now years determining what can and can’t be cooked in a combi steam oven and the list of ingredients and dishes is vast, to say the least. We‘ve developed recipes for ‘day to day’ items that can be converted to steam (like our steamed chocolate cake) and we’ve developed complex dishes that might only be cooked infrequently or for special occasions. It’s fair to say that you’re really only limited by your imagination as to what you can cook with steam. The trick is knowing the right temperature to cook at. We bang on about this all the time – all cooking is about time and temperature and steam is not limited to 100˚C.

e&s: What are steam ovens like to clean?

CWS: Like any conventional oven, regular cleaning is the best way to ensure that the cleaning process itself is not arduous. Leave it for too long and you’ll eventually have to put some heavy elbow grease into making your oven shine again. The ASKO “elements” Combi Steam oven “elements” uses pure steam which means the oven cavity stays dry and, therefore, nothing more than a quick wipe of the glass and your oven is clean. With “Elements” the built-in cleaning program will bring the sparkle back to your oven in a fairly effortless way. For caked on grime, from a pork roast, for instance, you can spray on a vinegar, water and bi-carb solution before running the cleaning program and your oven will be back to new in no time. In a word, cleaning a steam oven is – easy!

e&s: What are the health benefits of cooking with steam?

CWS: The health benefits of steam cooking have been widely documented. Probably the best example would be to look at green vegetables and the comparison between ‘traditional’ cooking vs steam cooking. Blanching green vegetables in a pot of boiling water has been the ‘traditional’ cooking method for eons. Next time you cook green vegetables in a pot of water, take a look at the colour of the water you pour down the sink once you’ve finished cooking. It will have a green tinge representing the nutrients that you just ‘cooked out’ of the food. Steaming keeps the proteins and nutrients in the vegetables, meaning you’re benefiting from more goodness in every serving.

e&s: Is the duration of cooking time impacted when using a steam oven?

CWS: Steaming food is often, however not always, a quick method of cookery. Many recipes we develop at ‘Cooking with Steam’ use temperatures below 100˚C though we feel the accuracy of the temperature and control you have will result in less failures in the kitchen. Steam may not be the quickest method, however it is far more forgiving. Combi cooking (cooking in hot air and steam) will cut several minutes off the cooking times of your family favorites, such a roast chicken. Steam ovens are also an excellent alternative to microwaves when it comes to reheating certain foods.

e&s: What is your favourite thing to cook in these ovens?

CWS: I personally find nothing more pleasing that a perfectly cooked piece of fish. All fish differ in shape and size and once you figure out specific temperatures required for different fish, you will never go back to pan-fried or roasted fish dishes.

e&s: Any recipes you’d recommend?

CWS: Steamed Spring Vegetable Salad. I chose this one as it is perfect for spring, simple and very tasty. You can find this recipe here.

Paul Mounsey

In 2014, Paul co-founded ‘Cooking with Steam’, the first online resource dedicated to steam oven cooking. Cooking with Steam was created to educate and encourage home cooks to get the most out of their steam ovens. Paul has created hundreds of recipes adapted to steam oven cooking and champions this method of cooking within the home.

Cooking with Steam de-mystifying steam oven cooking.

Purchase any ASKO Combi Steam Oven and receive a complimentary 6-month subscription to Cooking with Steam. Cooking with Steam has 260+ recipes specifically designed for Combi Steam Ovens.