Steamed & Boiled Dishes

Steam cuisine has been quite a trend in the past ten years, for several reasons. It is easy to believe that this must be a healthy way to cook, because it doesn’t need oil or any kind of fat. Boiling, by contrast, may seem a little insipid, yet if the liquid contains spices then their flavours will be absorbed by the meat or vegetables that are being boiled. In my Southeast Asian cooking, steaming often means wrapping the meat, vegetables or fish in a small packet made of banana leaf, and steaming them in some sort of container, which may be anything from a sophisticated steam oven in the kitchen of a four-star hotel to a bamboo steaming-basket inside a wok or a saucepan.