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Homepage > Tefal magazine > Hot topics > Home Steam Cooking > Taste and health
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A question of taste!
With steam, you can now feature gourmet cooking in all your meals.
But how does steam cooking work? Here are a few ideas to explore…
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Really more flavour?
Yes, as contrary to preconceived ideas, steaming does not mean blandness. In fact flavours, smells, colours and texture of all ingredients (meat, fish, vegetables, fruits…) are more intact when steam cooked rather than fried or boiled in water. Ingredients are served without artifice, with just their taste enhanced. You need proof? Try eggs en cocotte with smoked salmon, moist chocolate cake, pork chops in tomato sauce, pears poached in white wine… Here are a few recipe ideas to set you off in the right direction…
Why?
Because the heat of steam is gentle, it therefore respects the cellular structure of food tissues as well as their aromatic composition. Boiling water is never in contact with the ingredients. Steam does not seal, it does not aggress, but slowly diffuses throughout the product. Meat for example stays particularly tender and tasty when steamed. It is the ideal way to cook fish, which does not “come apart” as sometimes happens when poached.
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With steam, vitamins are top of the bill.
Steam is your good health partner. Thanks to this type of cooking, you can take full advantage of the vitamins and mineral salts in your plate. Here’s why.
Think about it
Vegetables, fish, rice, pasta and sometimes fruits… We often boil or fry them. It’s a shame! Once in boiling water or in contact with the air, fragile vitamin C is dissolved. In a pressure cooker or steam cooker, steam cooks food rapidly and away from the air. The vitamin input of an ingredient can therefore vary according to the cooking method used. Brown rice, for example, should be cooked in a steamer, the only method that guarantees its valuable vitamin B1 input. More specifically, American researchers consider that a diet including five vegetable dishes a day, of which two or three are cooked, can help the organism fight ageing and also certain serious pathologies. Yet it is necessary for the ingredients to be cooked in the right conditions, i.e. steamed with a minimum loss of vitamins and mineral salts.
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Steam and vitamins: a great partnership
What’s the point of taking vitamin supplements when a simple change in our dietary habits could help us find all we need in our plates? In their natural form, eaten in the middle of the meal, vitamins are more effectively assimilated by the organism.
And whatever you do, don’t neglect vegetable stock! Fresh out of the retainer, it contains all the vitamins trapped by the steam. Drink it all day long or serve it as a consommé in attractive soup bowls.
Stocks, but also dishes and recipes, when good health goes hand in hand with good taste, steaming provides some great and tasty ideas.
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The proportion of vitamin C left in broccoli after steam cooking, as opposed to 40% when boiled! |
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of steamed broccoli is the equivalent of approximately 75 mg of vitamin C, i.e. approximately two-thirds of an adult’s daily vitamin C requirements. |
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The vitamin C requirement for an adult (source: the new revision of recommended nutritional intake for the French population) |
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