Go to the Article: Should You Steam It or Boil It? The Difference Matters
So I guess the omelette is in the 1%? 😉 great stuff and glad to see the team back in action!
Love that ChefSteps is back! Looking forward to the content to come!
I had heat transfer as a varsity subject - I'm totally gonna check your math next time I need to procrastinate
I know way less about cooking but thought the theory for cooking potatoes was that you want to slowly heat up the cold water (extra slow so you leave the lid off) so that the rate of heat transfer isn't too intense -> temperature gradients -> outside is too cooked before inside gets to temp -> glassy or crappy po's -> maybe just use a sous vide to make mash? -> just go to macdonalds.
Basically, is the potato texture as good for both methods? You could probably pressure cook them at an even higher steam T - what temperature must you not exceed for the sake of potato integrity...
This also got me thinking, is steaming dry pasta a good idea? Or would too much of the starch remain?
I am happy to the team going again. I assume some people didn't stick around. Chefs tend be mobile. How about testing sous vide vs. the Steam & Boiling tests?
Love it! Is Doug Baldwin still involved in ChefSteps, or was this a one-off? Can we expect more kitchen geekery from him?
Doesn't answer your question, but I now cook my pasta like Kenji (just enough water to cover pasta, bring to boil, dump in dried pasta, let return to simmer, put on lid, turn off heat, let sit...voila!).
https://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/how-to-cook-pasta-salt-water-boiling-tips-the-food-lab.html
I'd be surprised if steaming dry pasta would adequately hydrate the pasta while it was cooking. Also, I count on the salted water to flavor the pasta as well. For those two reasons, I think steaming dry pasta would not yield the same quality of results.
Yes, Douglas will be helping out with more geekery to come.
Interesting to know. Always thoght steaming takes for ages and ages. That experience comes from steaming Manty - a traditional Russian/Central Asian dish comparable with a dumpling. It takes 45 minutes to steam those, but I suppose it is because of the multi-tier set up and the fact that not only the dough but also the meat/pumpkin has to get cooked through.
On a different subject: Why not use an electric kettle to boil all that water. Having no induction cooktop that is my go-to method to get it done a a nick of time.
steaming in pressure cooker would work in exactly the same way?
I'm so excited that Chef Steps has brought on Doug. I have used his sous vide book for many years, and remember him as a kind and generous resource from the eGullet days. What a great opportunity for both Doug and Chef Step's readers!
Hey Grant- Any chance my Studio Pass membership might get me a discount on that buff looking Breville/PolySci induction burner??? !!
My thoughts exactly.
If your target audience is anyone in the US, please either show both Imperial and metric values, or skip the metrics. Despite efforts to go metric here decades ago, it hasn’t happened except for bolts holding a car together. Yes, we can all convert on our own, but typically won’t bother. I quit the article at 3.5L of water.
I am curious about adding salt to the water. Samin Nosrat of Salt Acid Fat Heat, is a big proponent of boiling vegetables as it is an effective way to add salt and taste to vegetables. Thoughts?
Being in the US, I like the use of metric.
I am parboiling great amount of potatoes for a catering service I run. I own a professional combi oven, do you think it will be beneficial to steam the potatoes instead of boiling them for 15 minutes. This will save me a lot of time and money. Also its not very convenient to get huge stockpots full of potatoes and water to a boil and then drain.
If you think this will work at what temperature and steam percentage do you suggest?
Have the follow-up videos mentioned at the end of the video been posted somewhere ?
The water coming to temp is not as important to the cooking process as the food coming to temp. Water is an excellent thermal conductor where air (with a little steam) is not as efficient. According to the Engineers Toolbox, you would need to heat the steam to 1,000 F to match the thermal conductivity of liquid water at 212 F. Energy transfers more efficiently with contact. Water baths allow for maximum contact area for all the potatoes in the pot by naturally rotating them. For one potato this may matter little where it would get steam contact, but for five pounds of potatoes in a pile it would. The top potatoes in the steam would get more energy while the middle of the pile would not. The result might be poorly cooked potatoes some more done than others.
Therefore, I challenge your hypothesis that steaming is better. Your video only proved it's better for heating water. Put a realistic amount of potatoes in the pot, and let's really see the results. My money is on the water bath.
Thanks to convection through the open spaces, I would expect the air temperature in the pile of steaming whole potatoes (they used a 1 kilogram pile) to be pretty uniform throughout, so the potatoes will cook at a uniform rate. If you diced the potatoes up into small cubes, that obviously wouldn't still be true (as with insulation).
More to the point, if you read the article carefully, their results actually demonstrated that cooking in boiling water was indeed faster than steam, not slower (once the water had reached temperature). The advantage of steaming comes from having to heat a smaller volume of water to start with, which is obviously much faster. The difference is relatively small and would depend on the volumes used.
Scientific concepts are always presented in metric, no matter where you live.
I suppose you can use the term "evaporative cooling" as you did but that's not the conventionally understood meaning of the term. It's about cooling air by drawing heat out of it via evaporating water. ( like a swamp cooler ) Your body uses it too. When you sweat you cool by evaporating the sweat and carrying away the heat needed to do that. In the case of a pot of water I don't see how that applies. You place the pot on a heat source and transfer that heat to the water. As the water heats any H2O molecule that reaches it's max heat to exist as a liquid ( 100 C at sea level ) sinks that heat in a phase change to a gas ( water vapor ) . The water left didn't get cooler by that. It couldn't. If it did it would leave room for it to hold more heat and you'd get no steam at all.
Not sure how much math you need to steam veggies. Water will turn to steam if you heat it past it's ability to remain a liquid. A smaller volume of water, all other things be held equal, will get to that point faster than a larger volume. Since you have to immerse to boil you'll need a larger volume of water. Steam a smaller one. Steam will be faster. But not by much. I think the biggest advantage of steam is less leeching of flavor.
Ditto on metric. Imperial is for chumps—or at least people that enjoy math more than I.
The specific heat of water in the explanation is listed as J/g K but I think it should actually be J/g C.
If this is the case should we be pressure cooking everything? Even more efficient?
@Samuel Gregson i guess if you want everything the consistency of pressure cooked vegetables
Kelvin and Celsius degrees are the same size
The booklet that came with my Kuhn Rikon lists times for all sorts of vegetables. I haven't tried them yet but would like to. Have you seen Dave Arnold's most recent Instagram post, about the no-added-water pot from the 20s? He cooked his potatoes for 3h and somehow, magically, they didn't overcook. I'm interested in reproducing this process in my Kuhn Rikon but have been too lazy to do tests yet
One approach to add to this comparison is combi steam ovens, which are increasingly common in home kitchens. Although both involve steam, a stovetop steamer will cook faster than a combi oven (ignoring the time it takes to heat up both) because a steamer can produce a greater volume of steam. However, the results may be different if you factor in the time it takes to get to temp, which will depend on your setup.
