Cooking with steam: A timeless technique

SEATTLE - I'm going to confess straight up that steaming hasn't been a favorite cooking technique of mine. The memory of cafeteria-style steam tables holding their cargo of limp broccoli stems has been hard to overcome.

Perhaps steamed food only suffers from a lack of good PR. It's been typecast as flavorless diet fare or food for tender palates. Admittedly, my own taste buds have become a bit cauterized by too many habanero-spiked salsas and spicy curries, and I'm often skeptical of delicately seasoned dishes.

But Middle Eastern and Asian cultures have cooked with steam for centuries. In those cuisines, vivid tastes - sweet, salty, sour, bitter and pungent - are layered through some of the world's greatest dishes.

n "The Breath of a Wok: Unlocking the Spirit of Chinese Wok Cooking Through Recipes and Lore" (Simon & Schuster, 2004), author Grace Young says that steaming is an ancient Chinese cooking technique and one of the Eight Treasured Tastes. "The popularity of steaming is due in part to the invention of the wooden steamer and bamboo insert prior to the Sung dynasty," writes Young.

In Chinese culture, dim sum, whole fish, chicken, meat and vegetables are all steamed in a wok. The bamboo steamer is often lined with cabbage leaves, which not only prevents food from sticking to the basket but also lends a suggestion of flavor.

Another ingenious technique is to form an "X" with a pair of chopsticks. They are placed above a shallow pool of boiling water in the bottom of a wok, and a heat-proof dish or plate holding the food rests on top. The dish captures juices and flavorings such as soy or Thai fish sauce, slivers of ginger or minced chilies.

In North Africa, couscous is traditionally steamed in a distinctive two-tiered pot called a couscousiere. In the bottom, lamb or chicken are cooked with vegetables and spices, their moisture releasing fragrant steam that plumps tiny grains of couscous in the perforated upper tier. Often a small bowl of spicy harissa sauce is served on the side. It's a deliciously complex dish, well-flavored and hardly tame.

Sally Schneider, author of "A New Way to Cook" (Artisan, 2001), broadens the definition of steam cooking by overlapping contrasting techniques.

For instance, vegetables may be steam-roasted (baked in parchment paper or aluminum foil) with orange zest, minced shallots and chopped Kalamata olives. Curry-spiced fish fillets enveloped by lettuce leaves, and corn husks encasing chicken breasts dusted with smoky paprika are spirited renditions.

Schneider also varies her repertoire by pan-steaming vegetables, which actually intensify their flavors. For example, strips of bell peppers are briefly sauteed in a spare drizzle of olive oil, then covered and steamed until soft. The dish is uncovered and the peppers finish cooking in their caramelized juices.

And consider the nutritional benefits of steaming food, which are impressive. In a recent study published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Nutrition, the level of flavonoids, an antioxidant compound, lost after steaming fresh broccoli was 11 percent. When compared with a 66 percent loss when broccoli was boiled, a 47 percent loss when pressure cooked, and a whopping 97 percent loss when microwaved, the advantages of cooking with this ancient technique in the contemporary kitchen are obvious. Even to a skeptic.

By CECE SULLIVAN