Steaming

zarazara

HI all, I've bought a 3 tiered steamer today in the hopes of saving money by using 1 elec ring instead of 3 , or even cooking on top of the woodburner sometimes. Trouble is i've never used one before so am looking for advice. Is it ok to steam frozen peas ,sweetcorn etc? can I do spuds in the water at the bottom them carrots and cabbage etc in the top pans? do they take longer to cook than they do in boiling water?
Thanks in advance.:o

geordie_joe

zarazara wrote: »

HI all, I've bought a 3 tiered steamer today in the hopes of saving money by using 1 elec ring instead of 3 , or even cooking on top of the woodburner sometimes. Trouble is i've never used one before so am looking for advice.

zarazara wrote: »

Is it ok to steam frozen peas ,sweetcorn etc?

Yes, I do that all the time.

zarazara wrote: »

can I do spuds in the water at the bottom them carrots and cabbage etc in the top pans?

Yes, spuds in the water then arrange any veg according to how long they take to cook.

zarazara wrote: »

do they take longer to cook than they do in boiling water?

It all depends on how hard you boil the water. The harder the boil the more steam is produced and the quicker the other veg cooks.

Don't worry, a steamer is the easiest thing to get used to. In no time you'll know exactly how long it takes to cook each type of veg exactly the way you like it.

timmmers

Peas etc are fine to steam. Spuds or other root veg are fine to provide steam too...but things like cabbage may need slicing smaller than for boiling to cook in roughly the same time.. lower is best for tougher to cook stuff.

I cheat a lot with stuff like cabbage, I can't be bothered starting them all at different times so I often put the almost cooked veg in a microwave bag and give it a couple of minutes max to tenderise it.

Steamers are a trial and error thing really, Depends how you like things cooked and what you cook. Fresh fish is lovely this way, and quick...and wrapped in foil with herbs and butter it works well.

Be careful with strong flavours and odours crossing from one food to another though...fish can do that and probably other foods I haven't tried it with yet.

Loads of videos helping with this stuff even if they aren't all lecky steamers they work the same way.

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-steam-vegetables-3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPlB-06JhY&feature=channel

Nothing much to it really, and you lose almost no goodness steaming stuff

t

zarazara

THANKYOU very much peeps. I hadnt thought of fish. Am going to try fish for tomorrows dinner.

415SanFran

I adore my steamer and wonder how I ever got on without one!
If I am only using two of the trays I use the last one for rice that I can bung in the freezer for a later date.
You have to put that in a dish with some water though, but when I am cooking something that takes an age, like beans, I can cook about 6 lots of rice in the same time, all for the freezer.
Don't even try pasta,,,,, thats just nasty!

Mel2

You don't need to put the potatoes in the water at the bottom. They can go on one of the tiers above and will cook fine.

tryingtoruletheworld

I usually boil frozen veg in the water at the bottom and steam potatoes and other veg in the tiers!