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A food steamer or steam cooker is a small kitchen appliance used to cook or prepare various foods with
Steamers.jpg, A modern metal steamer and a bamboo steamer
Har Gow and Shumai at DK Chinese Restaurtant.jpg, '' Har gow'' and '' shumai'', two common dim sum dishes cooked in steamers
Most steam cookers also feature a juice catchment which allows all nutrients (otherwise lost as steam) to be consumed. When other cooking techniques are used (e.g., boiling), these nutrients are generally lost, as most are discarded after cooking.
Due to their health aspect (cooking without any oil), food steamers are used extensively in health-oriented diets such as '' cuisine minceur'', some raw food diets, the Okinawa diet, a macrobiotic diet, or the CRON-diet.
Food steamers release less heat to the kitchen environment, therefore helping keep the kitchen cool during hot summers.
steam
Steam is water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...
heat by means of holding the food in a closed vessel reducing steam escape. This manner of cooking is called steaming.
History
Food steamers have been used for millennia. InAncient China
The history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife. Chinese civilization first emerged in the Y ...
, pottery steamers were used to cook food. Archaeological excavations have uncovered pottery cooking vessels known as ''yan'' steamers: a ''yan'' was composed of two vessels, a ''zeng'' with a perforated floor surmounted on a pot or caldron with a tripod base and a top cover. The earliest ''yan'' steamer dating from about 5000 BC was unearthed in the Banpo site. In the lower Yangzi River, ''zeng'' pots first appeared in the Hemudu culture (5000–4500 BC) and Liangzhu culture (3200–2000 BC) and were used to steam rice; ''yan'' steamers were also unearthed in several Liangzhu sites, including 3 found at the Chuodun and Luodun sites in southern Jiangsu
Jiangsu is a coastal Provinces of the People's Republic of China, province in East China. It is one of the leading provinces in finance, education, technology, and tourism, with its capital in Nanjing. Jiangsu is the List of Chinese administra ...
. In the Longshan culture (3000–2000 BC) site at Tianwang in western Shandong
Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...
, 3 large ''yan'' steamers were discovered.Underhill, Anne P. (2002). ''Craft Production and Social Change in Northern China''. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers. pp. 156 & 174. .
Advantages
Most steam cookers also feature a juice catchment which allows all nutrients (otherwise lost as steam) to be consumed. When other cooking techniques are used (e.g., boiling), these nutrients are generally lost, as most are discarded after cooking.
Due to their health aspect (cooking without any oil), food steamers are used extensively in health-oriented diets such as '' cuisine minceur'', some raw food diets, the Okinawa diet, a macrobiotic diet, or the CRON-diet.
Food steamers release less heat to the kitchen environment, therefore helping keep the kitchen cool during hot summers.
See also
*Food processing
Food processing is the transformation of agricultural products into food, or of one form of food into other forms. Food processing takes many forms, from grinding grain into raw flour, home cooking, and complex industrial methods used in the mak ...
* List of cooking appliances
* List of cooking vessels
* List of steamed foods
* Bamboo steamer
* Pressure cooking
A pressure cooker is a sealed vessel for cooking food with the use of high pressure steam and water or a water-based liquid, a process called pressure cooking. The high pressure limits boiling and creates higher temperatures not possible at low ...
* Rice cooker, a cooking appliance that may have a food steaming capability
* Siru, earthenware steamer
References
{{reflist Ancient inventions Chinese inventions Cooking appliances Cooking vessels Food preparation appliances