Modern chinese recipe cooking art technique

How to Prepare / Make / Cook - ?

After stir-frying, steaming is probably the most popular Chinese cooking method. Manufacturers now offer new electric steamers, but I prefer the Chinese stove-top steamers. They provide much more flexibility and control; flexibility in that larger steamers can hold whole fish or bowls of different sizes, control in that you can adjust the amount of heat as you wish.

The Chinese steamer is designed with numerous flat tiers-most commonly two tiers-and a lid. In the Far East, steamers can range in size from diminutive four-inch ones for dim sum to gargantuan tabletop steamers for commercial and restaurant use. For home use, the most common sizes are ten to twelve inches in diameter, these are available in bamboo, aluminum, and stainless steel.

Bamboo steamers are handmade in Asia. Because bamboo can grow to over a hundred feet in height, very large as well as very small steamers can be made from this natural material. Some bamboo steamers in the American market are actually made of wood, with only the slats in bamboo. Some of the best bamboo steamers come from Sichuan (Szechuan) Province, where bamboo grows in profusion. The bamboo steamer is designed to sit over another pot, usually a wok. Containing boiling water.

The benefit of a steamer made of bamboo is that as a natural material it absorbs condensation, keeping it from dripping back onto the food. When heated, it forms a hot container and can keep food warm for half an hour. A good bamboo steamer is also attractive enough to bring to the table and is generally reasonably priced.

Steamers made of aluminum and stainless steel come outfitted with a large base pot and tiers that fit snugly on top; there is no need to use a wok as the base. Metal steamers are the easiest to use if you plan do a lot of steaming. Most metal steamers have tiers that are high enough to accommodate a medium-size bowl for steaming soups. Ten twelve, and fourteen-inch metal steamers are the most popular sizes for home use.

A drawback with metal steamers is that condensation forms inside the lid and drips onto the food, sometimes in a big stream when the lid is lifted. This is most troublesome when steaming breads and dumplings. To keep this from happening, the Chinese wrap the lid and the upper tier with a large piece of cotton cloth.

I use both metal and bamboo steamers at home. I prefer the bamboo steamers for steamed breads and dumplings because they don’t allow condensation to form. I like the metal steamers because they accommodate bigger bowls and plates and can hold more water, so I don’t have to replenish the boiling water as often. The larger steamers may be found in some Chinese markets or hardware stores in Chinatown.