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Hello!
This issue marks the 1-year anniversary of Steam Oven Insiders!
I deeply appreciate all of you who’ve signed on over the past 12 months. Insiders has changed the viability of my tiny business, and allowed me to spend more time creating the steam oven cooking content that you enjoy. Your memberships have also helped to hire my assistant, Noime, and I’m proud and grateful that Steam & Bake can support her family also.
If you’ve been here from the beginning, an extra thanks for joining Insiders before any of us (including me!) really knew what the membership would look like. What I thought would just be a couple of extra newsletters a month has turned into a growing, searchable library of exclusive content and a whole new version of the Steam & Bake website. I hope Insiders will remain ever-evolving, and that it’ll continue to serve you well on your steam oven cooking journey. As always, I welcome your questions and comments about cooking and the membership in general, so keep them coming.
Right. We’re actually here to talk about food, so let’s do that! Specifically, pasta.
I’ve tried for years to do a one-pan pasta combi steam recipe. Not one where you boil the pasta first, but one where you cook everything in together, so the flavors meld and the pasta takes on the seasoning and it all just works and tastes amazing. It’s eluded me every time, with previous attempts being too glue-like, not cooked properly or just not very tasty. But I did not give up, and today you get the brilliant result after years of mediocre pasta dishes that I’ve force fed to my family regardless. I’m excited to share it, and my kids were excited to eat it (twice last week alone), which is probably the best tell that it’s a winner.
Happy cooking, see you in mid-July.
Emily x
PS As with the last issue, our newsletter format is slightly altered today. As I send this out, the new Insiders website should be live and open tomorrow. I want to make sure you have ready access to today’s recipe, though, so there’s a link to a pdf printable version below. For those who like to log in and go back to archived recipes and newsletters, don’t worry. Today’s content will be uploaded to the new site over the next few days.
New to Cook: One Pan Steam Oven Pasta Bolognese
This steam oven pasta Bolognese is adapted from a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe for pasta with harissa Bolognese. I’ve seen it published online a few times over the past couple of years, and I’d noticed and thought it looked nice, but not bothered to make it. Then a friend sent me the link and wanted to know if I thought it would be good for a steam oven. Only one way to find out!
I’d assumed, wrongly as it turns out, that this would be similar to my other (less-than-stellar) Bolognese pasta bake attempts. But the ratios of meat, veg, liquid and seasoning are perfect and the use of broken up pasta gives things a beautiful rustic, ruffled texture. Happily, the recipe also works perfectly well with dried spiral pasta.
Want to print ONLY this recipe, not the whole newsletter? I’ve made you a pdf as a stand-in to print, while we wait for the usual recipe card to be uploaded to the new website.
The Season Flip
A couple of fabulous things that have inspired me this week, ripe for steam oven conversion. Both involve preheating a pan when you preheat your oven, which is a great way to boost the browning qualities of your food in a relatively short amount of time.
Southern Hemisphere
Puff Pastry Brie with Honey and Thyme
I am doing a (very, very rare) private cooking class this week, and this is the appetizer we’ll be making. It’s an outstanding food party trick at any time of year, but particularly good in cooler weather, when a warm, gooey wheel of cheese wrapped in flaky pastry will be descended upon by your fellow eaters like almost nothing you’ve ever seen.
Preheat your oven to Combi Steam, 375°F/190°C, 60% (high) humidity. Place the heaviest-weight sheet pan or baking tray you have into the oven as you turn it on, so it can heat up while you prepare the cheese. This is going to ensure the bottom of your pastry cooks as fast as the top when you go to bake it.
Put a fridge-cold wheel of good quality brie in the center of a square of puff pastry. Size and dimensions of both are variable; you just need the pastry to be large enough that it encloses the cheese when you lift up the corners. If blackberries are in season for you, a few popped on top of the cheese are very welcome; completely optional though, and the dish is excellent even without them.
Lift opposite corners of the pastry and fold them over the top of the brie, then brush a little egg wash across those corners and fold the other corners up and over, sealing everything together. You’ll see the photo shows the pastry open on top; I have since decided I much prefer it fully enclosed! Tuck any poking-out bits of pastry in, and brush the entire top and sides of the pastry disc with more egg wash. Put it onto a piece of parchment paper not much bigger than the disc, for ease of transferring to the oven.
When the oven and pan are hot, slide the pastry, still on its paper, onto the pan. Cook until the pastry is golden brown all over. A 10oz (250g) wheel of brie takes about 25 minutes, so adjust for larger or smaller cheeses as necessary.
When the cheese is done, transfer to a serving plate with toasted bread or good crackers, and more fresh blackberries if you used them in the pastry. Drizzle the pastry with honey and scatter fresh thyme leaves over the top. Give your guests a cheese knife and let them help themselves; it’s messy but not a soul will complain.
Northern Hemisphere
Blistered Peas in the Pod
It’s no secret that I (and many of you) love Deb at Smitten Kitchen. Last week she published this delight, blistered peas with lemon and salt. It looks so tasty and so beautiful that I cannot wait for pea season in Australia. If you’re lucky enough to have ‘peak peas’ right now, I’m envious. And here’s how I’d adapt Deb’s recipe for your steam oven:
Instead of grilling, preheat your oven as hot as it will go on a Combi Steam setting, with 60-70% (high) humidity. Place the heaviest-weight sheet pan or baking tray you have into the oven as you turn it on, so it can heat up while you prepare the peas.
When the oven is hot, put the washed and oiled peas straight into the preheated pan and let them roast until they’re beginning to blacken and sizzling. I’m guessing no more than 8-10 minutes will be about right. They may not be as charred as on a grill, but the pea flavor and texture will be better thanks to the steam, so that’s your trade-off.
I like Deb’s ‘raft style’ serving suggestion, which allows you to season the peas themselves after cooking, not just the pods.
A Thing I'm Loving
I’ve shared about Caro Chambers fantastic subscription newsletter before, but I’m still loving it so much that I want everyone to know!
Caro’s weekly ‘What to cook when you don’t feel like cooking’ missives are bright and fun, and the recipes are inspiring and always adaptable. Paid subscribers get a new recipe every week and access to a huge archive of previous recipes, plus well-considered meal plans each month. You can also sign up to a free version which gets you a recipe once a month. I went all-in on a paid annual subscription and it’s been worth far more than the price of admission.
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 Anne
Q: Can you recommend what Combi steam temperature I should use for a cream based potato bake with onion?
A: I’d go for a low-moderate temperature for a potato bake, so it doesn’t brown too fast on top with the fat from the cream. Try 320°F/160°C with 30-40% humidity; too much humidity and the cream sauce will never evaporate and thicken up, and you’ll be left with potatoes swimming in creamy soup!
From Fran
Q: I’ve been wanting to ask you how to cook slow cooked Brisket in a VZug steam oven?
A: If I remember correctly, VZug has a hot air humid setting, which would be perfect for brisket. I’d go for a temp of around 285°F/140°C. The timing will depend on the thickness of your brisket, but I’d suggest beginning to check it around the 2½-3 hour mark. Brisket has a tendency to dry out if you overcook it, so you’ll want to pay attention to how it’s going every 15 minutes or so after that time. If it’s something you cook regularly, and generally always a piece of similar size, definitely keep note of how long it took so you don’t have to be so vigilant the next time you make it.