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Hello!
Today’s Insiders newsletter is less formal than usual, but I hope it’s no less useful!
Instead of a dedicated long-form article like I generally include here, today I’m sharing a few shorter ideas and tips for Easter cooking. All can be applied throughout the year, but they’re especially relevant as we come up to Easter in a couple of weeks.
We’ve also got a new exclusive recipe, and it’s a beauty. Little lemon pots! It’s like the perfect lemon tart filling crossed with the creamiest custard imaginable. And as with most of my favorite desserts, this requires no special skills, not too many ingredients and can be (in fact, must be) made ahead of time. The special thing is your steam oven, doing a low and slow steam to take away the need for a water bath.
I’ll be back in your inboxes during the Easter weekend, but for now, happy steam oven cooking and Happy Easter if you celebrate it.
Emily x
PS A little heads up, because I like to keep you all in the loop around here: there are some big changes coming to the Insiders website! Over the next couple of months we’ll be shifting things around, with the aim that you’ll be able to navigate around between the main Steam & Bake site and your exclusive Steam Oven Insiders content much more easily. I (and many of you) have been wanting a way to search for and use my free and paid content in a seamless, single place. It’s a big job but I have my wonderful web developer on board and we’re determined to make it happen. Watch this space, I’ll keep you all posted.
Topic of Interest: A Handful of Easter Cooking Things
A list and some discussion on good ideas and recipes for Easter (and most of them aren’t even chocolate!).
Recipe of the Edition
Tiny little creamy-tart dishes of joy, these are. They are deceptively simple and though you can certainly dress them up with berries, crushed shortbread or ginger cookies, all they really need is a little thick cream on top. You can make these lemon pots up to 3 days before you need them and keep, covered in the fridge.
A Thing I'm Loving
I mentioned this in a general email last week, but I am loving that Anova, my favorite countertop steam oven and sous vide device brand, are having a big sale on some of their products! If you’ve ever wanted to add a sous vide circulator to your kitchen gadgets lineup, now’s the time to grab one.
Ask Me Anything (AMA)
Here’s your opportunity to ask me anything you like related to combi steam cooking!
I really encourage you to submit questions, and will do my best to answer as many as possible. Though I may not be able to get to every single question, I will carefully curate ones which are relevant and represent a variety of topics. We all learn from each other, and I often learn new things based on questions from all of you!
If you have an AMA question, please email it to [email protected]. Make sure you include the phrase INSIDERS AMA in the subject line so I can collate and read all your submissions.
From Ros
Q: Thank you very much for your excellent custard and sauces newsletter. One remaining question I have is: how much milk can I substitute for the cream if I want a light custard?
A: You can substitute all of it, if you like! A milk-only custard generally sets a little firmer, I find. I don’t love the texture of straight milk custard, but I find if I use ⅔ milk and ⅓ cream as a ratio, that’s a good middle ground for a lighter custard.
From Julie
Q: I have a chuck roast I want to braise in my steam oven. I know it is combi setting but what temp and for how long? It would be great to stick some potatoes, green beans and carrots in with it. How do I do all that? Thanks
A: I’d use this recipe for steam oven chili con carne as a guide to time and temperature for your chuck roast. It’s written for brisket but I’ve done it successfully with chuck a number of times, and it’s a good overall basis for a pot roast. As for the vegetables, you can put the potatoes and carrots in right at the start of cooking, and I’d add the green beans nearer to the end of cooking. In fact, I’d wait until I was happy with the meat texture, then add the beans and let everything go for a further half hour to cook them through.
I’ll be doing a full Insiders newsletter on slow cooking in the next couple of months, so I’ll elaborate more when I get into that topic.
From Glynis
Q: I have an AEG steam oven where I can set my options for steam to “full, high, medium or low”. I cook frozen Gyoza in the steamer basket of my rice cooker. I would much prefer to cook them in my steam oven but do not know what temperature to set the oven at. I assume I would select the “full steam” option. I would appreciate any advice.
A: Yes, you’ll want the full steam option for your gyoza, and any other Asian style steamed dumplings or dim sum-type foods. If you set to full steam at 212°F/100°C, you’ll be replicating a stovetop steamer with your oven, and can happily steam big trays of gyoza instead of just a few at a time.
From Mary
Q: I’ve been looking for a steam oven cheese soufflé recipe without success. Do you have one or suggestions on how to adapt a regular recipe?
A: Oooh, this is a great question, although I’m not sure I’m qualified to give a detailed answer! I have done both cheese and chocolate souffles using combi steam, but neither for a long while. From memory I used ‘regular’ recipes and cooked both at around 400°F/200°C, using a high level of steam (60%, or even 80%). They worked well but I can’t find my notes from when I tried them out, so I can’t get more specific than that. I have marked this as a topic to return to, though; it would make a great future Insiders recipe!