You are reading a paid Steam Oven Insiders member journal. Journals drop into your inbox on the 15th and 30th of each month.
Would you like to view all previous journals? You can find those in the journal archive.
Hello, and happy 2026 to all of you!
I’m very happy to be back for another year of Steam Oven Insiders fun. I’m full of ideas and plans for how to make your membership more valuable, and I’ll be working on those throughout 2026, alongside (of course) lots of new recipes and steam oven cooking ideas.
We’re kicking off the year with a loose theme of ‘dinners that are simple but completely delicious’. I mean, that’s a theme I want to go with all the time, but in the hazy post-festive fog of January (a time we affectionately refer to as ‘Blursday’ here), all I want are meals that are colorful and flavorful but don’t require the complexity of much of my December cooking.
Today’s new recipe for you is the most glorious spicy Sichuan style chicken and sticky rice, something that’s been a staple dinner in my house for… wait for it… 15 years. Yes, it’s wild to me too that I have not yet shared every aspect of our eating history with you all. But I’m so happy to immortalize this recipe for the interwebs, not least because the only version I currently have is scratched onto a heavily annotated scrap of paper from 2011! The fear of losing this critical hard copy is real, so I for one am thrilled to have it properly written up and published at last.
There are more easy dinner suggestions in From the Archives below, and a couple of gorgeous seasonal salad-dinner ideas to convert to your steam oven in the Season Flip. Lastly, way down at the bottom of this journal, you’ll see that the format of the Ask Me Anything section is being tweaked this year, to allow for more in-depth answers and better searchability of older AMA questions.
See you in a couple of weeks,
Emily x
New to Cook
Sichuan Chicken and Sticky Rice
The original inspiration for this outstanding almost-one-pan dinner is a long since disappeared recipe from a print copy of New Zealand’s Cuisine magazine (still in publication, still great, independently owned these days instead of large media company owned).
I first cooked it around the same time as I began using a steam oven, and had a few early, unsuccessful attempts at converting it to a steam-only recipe. The chicken became less tasty and a little rubbery, the rice went mushy, and after trying over and over I stopped and put it aside. I was disappointed because I’d thought the dish was a great steam oven candidate, but I kept making it as an oven-and-stovetop thing anyway, before deciding last year that it was high time to try again to convert it with the benefit of many more years of steam oven experience. I am happy to report that those years have paid dividends and now you get to make this winner for yourselves.
This Sichuan chicken and rice is simpler and faster to make than the original version I’ve loved for so long, but loses none of its flavor or texture, and it’s a brilliant example of why sometimes it’s worth persevering to recreate favorite dishes in your steam oven (also a good reminder that I too fail at converting things to steam oven cooking and sometimes admit defeat, if only temporarily!).
From the Archives:
If you missed it the first time around, or you’re newer to Insiders, another of my favorite one-pot meals involving rice is Yotam Ottolenghi’s Lentil Rice (Mujadra). Completely different in approach and flavor to today’s featured recipe, but equally as delicious, I promise.
And, a great dinner I made with one of my kids the other day (always trying to get them interested in cooking meals for themselves!), the Tortilla Quiche from volume 41 of Insiders. This is one of those any-season, easy, adaptable recipes that after you’ve tried it once you’ll be able to take it in different directions with other fillings, and really make it your own thing.
The Season Flip
Substantial salad dishes that can definitely be main meals!
Southern Hemisphere
Rukmini Iyer’s Corn Salad with Haloumi, Broccoli and Black Beans
I spied this in the Guardian just today, so I have to confess I’m yet to try it! But I will be, this week, with some fresh sweetcorn I’ve got in the fridge. I am confident of its excellence. Here’s how I’ll simplify the dish for my steam oven; it becomes more of a sheet-pan meal affair but I still think it qualifies as a salad.
Preheat your oven to Combi Steam, 400°F/200°C, 50% (medium) humidity. Oil the haloumi and broccoli and put, single layer, onto a sheet pan or shallow baking dish. Cook for about 8 minutes, then add the corn and beans. Try not to cover up the haloumi (if you can be bothered, pick it up and place on top of all the veggies for maximum browning). Cook everything for a further 5-6 minutes, by which time the haloumi should be sizzling and colored at the edges and the vegetables cooked. Dress as per the recipe and enjoy.
Northern Hemisphere
Smitten Kitchen’s Crispy Cabbage and Cauliflower Salad
This is a relative oldie from 2022, which I’ve made several times and loved (fair warning for those of you cooking for young ones, my kids hate it!). The only conversions here are to set your oven to Combi Steam instead of Deb’s conventional directions, using her given temperature of 450°F/230°C, and 50% (medium) humidity, and reduce the cooking time if necessary. As mentioned in the recipe, do not be afraid to get the vegetables nice and dark, it will give so much more flavor to the finished dish.
Ask Me Anything (AMA)
Our AMA format is changing slightly in 2026, but I still want your questions! This is still your best opportunity to ask me anything you like about steam oven cooking.
I’ll continue to answer some AMA questions via email, but my goal is to respond to more of them as articles on the Steam & Bake website. This makes the answers easier to search and refer back to if the same questions come up again. Whenever a new article is published in response to an AMA question, I’ll let you know here in our Insiders journals.
If you have a question, big or small, please email it to [email protected]. Be sure to include INSIDERS AMA in the subject line so I can easily collect and review all submissions.