Two types of steaming utensils

Cantonese cuisine, steamed fish

Steaming is a method of cooking using steam. Overcooking or burning food is easily avoided when steaming it. Health conscious individuals may prefer steaming to other methods which require cooking oil, resulting in lower fat content.

Steaming also results in a more nutritious food than boiling because fewer nutrients are leached away into the water, which is usually discarded. A 2007 USDA comparison between steaming and boiling vegetables shows the most affected nutrients are folic acid and vitamin C. Compared to raw consumption, steaming reduces folic acid by 15%, and boiling reduces it by 35%. Again compared to raw consumption, steaming reduces vitamin C by 15%, and boiling reduces it by 25%. All other nutrients are reduced by a similar amount by both methods of cooking ^[1].

2 common techniques employed for steaming food outdoors

In Western cooking, steaming is most often used to cook vegetables, and rarely to cook meats. In Chinese cuisine, vegetables are mostly stir fried or blanched and seldom steamed. Meat dishes are steamed, for example, steamed whole fish, steamed pork spare ribs, steamed ground pork or beef patties, steamed chicken, steamed goose etc. Other than meat dishes, many Chinese rice and wheat foods are steamed too. Examples include buns, Chinese steamed cakes etc. Steamed meat dishes (except some dim sum) are less common in Chinese restaurants than in traditional home cooking because meats usually require longer cooking time to steam than to stir fry.

See also

• Double steaming
• Mushiki, a Japanese steamer made from bamboo
• Cooking
• Braising
• Food steamer

References

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