Steam Oven Cooking

What is a steam oven?

Traditional ovens use hot air that is generated by heating elements in the oven walls. A fan distributes the air evenly around the food.

Steam ovens boil water from an inbuilt reservoir to create a cloud of steam within the oven chamber. This moist heating method is the reason why steam cooking offers significant benefits.

Benefits of steam-oven cooking

• Steam-cooked foods retain more of their flavour, texture and colour (this is especially true of vegetables)
• Less vitamins, minerals and nutrients are lost than with dry-heat cooking. This often means it isn't necessary to add salt or oil
• The moist nature of steam heat means that the food doesn't dry out
• Different types of food can share the oven without transfer of flavour (see the YouTube video)
• Steam ovens are relatively easy to keep clean and avoid the problem of baked-in spillage associated with conventional ovens

What can be cooked in a steamer?

Most foods are suitable for steam cooking: meat, fish, vegetables, pasta, potatoes, bread and desserts.

Are there disadvantages to steam ovens?

The moist-heat nature of steam ovens means that they are unable to brown the outer skin of meat.

For this reason, many manufacturer's have launched steam combination ovens, which offer both heating methods in one appliance. The food is cooked by steam and browned with dry heat before serving.

This combines the benefit of steam cooking with the crisp, brown skin so characteristic of roast meat.

Steam Oven Manufacturers

Many manufacturers now offer steam ovens, including designs that match their traditional ovens and microwaves.

The following are examples of steam ovens from Bosch (the first is steam-only, the second a combination model).