Steamers are popular for cooking food quickly without losing nutrition or adding fat. When shopping for a steamer, consider safety measures, materials used, ease of cleaning, and additional trays. Plastic can be harmful, so stainless steel or glass is recommended. A non-transparent lid can cause instability, so glass lids are best.
Cooking with a steamer is becoming more and more popular. Steamers cook food quickly with no loss of nutrition and no added fat. They are one-pot miracles that allow you to cook a wide range of foods together, making cleanup a breeze. That said, however, it’s important to know what to look for when shopping for a food steamer. Attention to safety measures, the type of materials used in making the steamer, and ease of cleaning all need to be considered before the buyer as much as taking a look at the price.
A steamer has inherent dangers. For one thing, if the steamer is used over the stove or plugs into a wall and sits on the counter, escaping steam can severely burn you. Steam is steam, and if water vaporizes too quickly in a machine that doesn’t have a safe vent, an explosion could result.
For many years, plastic was king. It was cheap to manufacture, easy to clean, and gladly took on virtually any shape a designer desired. Recently, however, the health care industry has noticed that plastics can permeate cooking foods with chemicals, some of which are highly toxic. Since it is less dense than other materials, plastic is also capable of harboring food or airborne bacteria. The best plastic choices, especially within the steamer, are stainless steel or glass.
Giving up a plastic interior doesn’t have to mean giving up convenience when it comes to cleaning. Non-electric machines can almost always be taken apart to fit in the dishwasher, and many electric models allow the user to pop out the internal components for a rub-a-dub-dub. Shoppers might consider that nonstick machines are especially nice when steaming treats that are brittle enough to fall apart if they stick to the pan.
For cooks who are partial to complex meals or who cook for large numbers of people, a steamer that comes with one or more additional trays of food should be high on the must-have list. Some steamers, such as traditional Chinese bamboo steamers, are designed to allow multiple trays to be stacked on top of each other. This type of design is far preferable to one that can accommodate the kitchen for many people by virtue of size alone; those steamers can handle meals for a football team but can’t steam a single serving.
A steamer with a non-transparent lid isn’t the best choice. Every time the cook pulls the lid to check the cooking progress, a cloud of steam explodes. This is not only a danger; it means that the cooking environment has become unstable and it will take extra time to rebuild. Glass lids are the best choice.
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