Procedure for Pressure Steaming Vegetables

Appears in

Published 2010

Place a solid hotel pan in the bottom of a pressure steamer to collect drips. Turn on the steamer and wait for the ready indicator to come on.
Fill a large bowl or tub halfway with equal parts ice and water. Place it near the steamer.
Prepare freshly sanitized, lidded storage containers lined with clean, dry kitchen towels. Have ready a spider or perforated lifter.
Spread uniformly fabricated vegetables in perforated hotel pans in layers no more than 2 in. (5 cm) deep.
Load one or more pans of food into the steamer (A) and set the timer for slightly less time than you estimate the food will need to cook.
When the timer goes off, check the food’s doneness by tasting a sample item. If necessary, continue steaming until the food reaches the desired doneness. (If you need to cook additional batches, record the total cooking time but deduct 5 seconds of recovery time for each time the door was opened.) Remove the pan(s) from the steamer.
Refresh the vegetables by immediately transfering them into the ice water. Stir to evenly distribute them. Potatoes, and other porous foods such as beets and winter squash, should be slightly undercooked and allowed to cool in the pans rather than refreshing them.
When the refreshed vegetables are thoroughly cold, drain them and place in the towel-lined containers to blot dry (B).