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Hello, and Happy Easter!
This Insiders issue comes to you from the beach. My husband is working through the holiday, but the kids and I have headed to the little beachside town where my Mum and sister live. My brother has flown in with his daughter (we haven’t seen them since mid-2022!) so we’re enjoying a weekend of cousins and egg-hunting, beachcombing and swimming. I hope your Easter also brings loved ones, enjoyment and good food.
Today’s newsletter is all about defrosting or thawing using your steam oven. Not the most glamorous of topics, but immensely useful nonetheless. This is one of those issues you should bookmark to come back to over and over, and which helps you make use of an often-overlooked benefit of steam ovens.
Happy steam oven cooking, and defrosting, see you again in a couple of weeks.
Emily x
Heads-up: there are some affiliate links in today’s newsletter and article, for products I recommend. If you purchase via these links I may receive a small commission from those businesses, at no additional cost to you.
Topic of Interest: Thawing Frozen Foods in a Steam Oven
Discussion of thawing foods in a steam oven feels pretty mundane, but thawing or defrosting is a crucial step in food preparation that can significantly impact taste, texture, and food safety.
Conventional methods like countertop thawing, fridge thawing or using a microwave have been prevalent, but your steam oven actually offers a great alternative in many instances, providing a quick and even thaw to many foods.
The Season Flip
Both of these are things which freeze very well, so you can make double, freeze and then put your newfound steam oven food thawing knowledge into practice!
Southern Hemisphere
A great shoulder-season meal that freezes perfectly and can be made into pies, pot pies, or just served atop toast for a quick midweek dinner.
Northern Hemisphere
This recipe is an oldie but a goodie, and the leftovers are just as delicious as the first time around. Make more than you need and freeze a meal’s worth. Thaw and then reheat while you toss together a salad and slice a loaf of bread, and you’ll have yourself a very nice (and very low-effort) dinner indeed.
A Thing I'm Loving
I’ve already spoken about it in this issue’s Topic of Interest article above, but writing that piece has reminded me how much I love my Anova chamber vacuum sealer. It seals solids, liquids, oils, you name it, and does so with ease. My husband’s been using it to bag up chili peppers and vegetables for fermentation, and I often pull it out to make some pickled vegetables in a flash.
If you want to invest in a chamber vac machine but don’t want a space-hogging commercial one, this is an excellent middle ground. It’s a good step up from a simple ‘suck-and-seal’ machine but nowhere near the thousands of dollars a small commercial vacuum sealer commands.
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 Laura
Q: Still getting to grips with the Miele steam oven we put into new kitchen in December.
Does steam enhance mushrooms, one of my favourite things to eat? I can’t seem to work out a good way for them!
Also aubergines is another fav which I’m not sure if steam can do better than normal.
Thanks for all your tips and your Xmas life saving cookbook!
A: Yes to mushrooms and aubergines/eggplants in the steam oven! Both are fantastic with some added humidity, and aubergines fare especially well because the steam collapses and softens the flesh so it gets a beautiful silky texture.
I cook both veggies using relatively high heat combi steam (say around 400°F/200°C). I prefer mushrooms with around 30%/low steam, and aubergines with 50%/med steam.
A tray of sliced mushrooms with butter and garlic (single layer, or close enough to it), will ‘saute’ in about 10-15 minutes for perfect breakfast mushrooms, depending on how thickly you’ve sliced them. But I also do stuffed mushrooms using the same settings. Make a fresh breadcrumb, garlic and herb stuffing with finely chopped mushroom stems and plenty of salt or parmesan cheese. Pack it into upturned field mushrooms, from which you pulled the stems for the filling, then drizzle with olive oil. Cook for about 20-25 minutes until the filling is golden brown, by which time the mushrooms should be perfectly cooked. You’ll never do stuffed mushrooms ‘dry’ again. 😉
For aubergines, you can cook them diced for using in other dishes (or make a ratatouille ‘tray bake’ with tomatoes, onions, capsicum/peppers and garlic in the pan as well). Or halve, score the flesh, drizzle with oil and season well, then roast until collapsing and scoop the flesh out. I vary this by rubbing miso paste all over the scored flesh when I want a super easy veg side with Asian style meals.
From Barbara
Q: We enjoyed your steam oven recipe for Hollandaise sauce so much! Our poached salmon, asparagus, and steam oven omelets were greatly improved by it.
Are there any considerations regarding egg safety? I notice that both the Hollandaise Sauce and the Little Lemon Pots (which I intend to try as soon as we finish my jars of your little cheesecakes!) are cooked at a temperature of 167 degrees F 100% steam. Occasionally I am asked that question about Lemon Curd in the steam oven also, and I don’t have the answer.
A: I’m glad you loved the Hollandaise, it’s such an easy way to make it!
As far as egg safety is concerned, the food safe standards in most countries dictate that eggs should be cooked to a temperature of 160°F/71°C to be safe for consumption. Because the lemon pots and Hollandaise sauce are cooked a touch above this, they are both considered cooked and safe to serve. Same goes for the lemon curd.
The one caveat to this is sous vide or slow cooked eggs, which are often cooked at a lower temperature. Food safety is a function of both temperature and time in these cases, where the food is held at temp for a longer period of time, thus making it safe to consume. I do think, though, that if someone is immunocompromised or exercising caution due to pregnancy, it’s worth advising them when you’re using very low sous vide temperatures, so they can make their own decision about the (admittedly very low) risks.
From Glenna
Q: How do I determine which heat source to use for recipes? Most do not specify whether it should be a Top, Bottom or Rear element. The owners book (Anova oven) states Top and Bottom are best for “traditional baking” however it seems the best results come from the Rear element setting.
A: With Anova (and some other) steam ovens, you have a lot of choices regarding heat source when cooking – this is a handy thing but also an overwhelming one!
Unless otherwise specified, you can continue on using the rear heat source for most of your cooking.
Your oven manual is correct that top and bottom element heating is akin to ‘traditional’ baking (ie a ‘static’ oven without a fan), but you’re right that in most cases, the most efficient cooking comes about via the rear element. It’s faster and more even than top and bottom cooking. I do 90% of my combi steam cooking using the rear element, and a great many brands offer this as the only heat source in their appliances!