I could steam cook if I wanted to
"Welcome to perfect steam cooking with AEG
Where art and science meet"
The above are the opening words of the cookbook that eventually came with my super new AEG Pro-Combi steam oven. And I do love it - the oven that is. The book is my lucky dip - strange what I pick for these lucky dips - the weird, the wonderful, the underused and the obscure. And this one is really just an ad for the oven.
So I'll begin with a word about the ovens. I adore my new kitchen. It fulfils my every need and the ovens were one of the things that I spent most time thinking about. When you go into an oven shop - well a kitchen equipment shop you are completely overwhelmed by what's on offer. And to begin with I would just go in and not really know where to start. Then I tried to narrow down what I wanted. Did I want a free-standing oven, one under the bench, in the wall, steam, wide - and if so how wide? You really have to think all of this through before you begin to decide on a particular brand.
Since coming to Australia I have always had wall ovens, so this is my innate preference. I'm getting old and don't really want to stoop down to an oven under the bench. So first decision made. Then, although most of the time I am just cooking for two and not really using the oven much, there are particular occasions like Christmas and family get togethers, when I need a lot of oven space. So initially I looked at wider than average ovens - you can get them up to 90cm wide. But after talking it through we decided that most of the time we would be using excess energy and space with a wide oven and besides most of them were meant to go under the bench. But one oven is not enough for those crunch times. So then we started looking at a separate steam oven and an ordinary oven - but almost all of the steam ovens are pretty small - and anyway I don't cook with steam. Then we discovered the AEG and Electrolux combo steam ovens (same company actually), and for some reason that I now cannot quite remember we decided to go for the AEG. It seemed to me that the potential of being able to cook using half or quarter steam and also to use the oven as an ordinary oven as well was an enormous advantage. And so it has proved to be. The second oven below it - is their basic model. I love it, though I have to confess I don't use all the automatic things I could, and I have yet to cook anything other than rice with the full steam option. It did perfect rice though. But I have used the quarter steam option a lot which they recommend for roasts - great. But this isn't really meant to be an ad for AEG ovens. For me it was the perfect choice and we managed to get the two ovens to fit in the IKEA oven cupboard too - with a bit of jiggling.
So on to my lucky dip book.
There are actual names attached to the recipes but not anyone I know. It's a beautifully presented little book - well not so little really - about the size of a Women's Weekly cook book that you get in the supermarket. At the front it has a very useful rundown of what to cook using the options on offer - though the book is focussed on steam cooking of some kind - not the numerous other things the oven has - like a pizza setting for example. (Excellent for quiches) I find. The pastry is satisfyingly crunchy. The recipes are interesting and beautifully presented and photographed. I really should try some of them. I've got to devise a method that makes me use my lesser-used books.
The recipe - it's pretty simple and healthy sounding:
SWORDFISH FILLETS WITH OLIVE BREAD CROUTONS, BITTER GREENS AND CAPERS
4 eggs, 1/2 head of frisée or curly endive, washed and broken up into small pieces, 300g of snow peas, strings removed and sliced diagonally, 1 bunch of parsley, stalks removed, 4 thick swordfish fillets, 3 cloves of garlic, crushed, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper
To serve
sliced bread, 100g of olive tapenade, 50g of capers
To cook
30 minutes at 96º, 75ºC on full steam
Preheat the oven on the Full Steam function to 90ºC.
Place the eggs in the oven and set the timer for 15 minutes.
At the 11 minute mark, put the frisée, snow peas and parsley on the steam tray and steam for the last 4 minutes. Remove eggs and vegetables from the oven and set aside to cool.
Reduce the heat to 75ºC and steam the swordfish for 9 minutes.
Meanwhile, on a cooktop, sauté the steamed greens with the garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and then season with salt and pepper.
Slice and grill the bread with some olive oil and top with tapenade.
Divide the sautéed greens between the plates, sprinkle with the capers and top with a swordfish fillet. Peel the warm eggs and place 1 on each plate with the olive toasts.
Of course you need a steam oven to cook this. It's my fasting day today, and if I had some fish I might have given it a go. But I don't so I won't. They do say fish is best steamed though. I really must try it. And how about boiling your eggs in an oven?
