Steaming

Steaming is a method of cooking using steam.

Steaming is a preferred cooking method for health conscious individuals because no cooking oil is needed, thus resulting in a lower fat content. Steaming also results in a more nutritious food than boiling because fewer nutrients are destroyed or leached away into the water (which is usually discarded). It is also easier to avoid burning food when steaming.

Steaming works by first boiling water, causing it to evaporate into steam; the steam then carries heat to the food, thus cooking the food.

In western cooking, steaming is most often used to cook vegetables, and only rarely to cook meats. By contrast, vegetables are seldom steamed in Chinese cuisine; vegetables are mostly stir fried or blanched instead.

In Chinese cooking, steaming is used to cook many meat dishes, 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.

The Chinese chefs developed an efficient method of restaurant cooking: big bamboo steaming baskets, each 3' in diameter and 4" tall, can be stacked up on top of a wok like a chimney. The bottom of each basket is a grid which allows the steam from the wok to rise all the way to the top of the stack. In the kitchen of some dim sum restaurants, a steaming stack can be 20 levels high. The bottom level is removed when done and the entire stack simply shifted downward. This technique ensures a constant supply of freshly steamed dim sum.

Steaming at home can also be done with a wok. A shelf is put on the bottom of the wok, and a small steam basket or a dish of food is put on the shelf. Water is then filled to just below the dish or basket. The water is kept boiling, and a lid is placed over. Most vegetable dishes can be cooked in approximately 5 minutes using this method; most meat dishes, however, take longer than 20 minutes.

A common alternative is to put the dish to be steamed on top of rice which is being cooked. A pot of rice which takes about 30 minutes to cook will then be ready at the same time as the steamed food.

Specialized steamers are often available for purchase; however, although they are more convenient, they are not necessarily better.

Rice is traditionally steamed in the Low country around Charleston, South Carolina, and specialized rice steamers are a common household cooking vessel in that area, although rather obscure elsewhere.

A related technique is enclosing food in a container or material that will release steam when heated, such as clay pot cooking. A kind of steaming can be done outdoors by wrapping meat, poultry, or fish in banana leaves and burying it in hot sand or ash. Another form of outdoor steam cooking is covering a large piece of meat, poultry or fish in wet clay and placing it in a fire.