FauxPas

Yay, Yay, Yay!!!! I love reading your food adventures. Looking forward to all that you will share! How old is Kira now?

How about some version of shrimp lettuce wraps? This at Simply Recipes could be adapted to use shrimp in place of salmon: http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/salmon_lettuce_wraps_with_cucumber_jicama_and_ginger/ With peanut dipping sauce: http://natashaskitchen.com/2014/01/22/shrimp-lettuce-wraps-with-peanut-dipping-sauce/ Or Vietnamese style: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/vietnamese-shrimp-lettuce-wraps-with-spicy-lime-dipping-sauce-10000001203620/ Browsing some of these might give you some ideas for your own fave combo of ingredients.

Will you be allowed to take pics and maybe post some here? Their bread menu sounds lovely. The savory fold sounds like a meal. Welcome!

Looking forward to reading about your adventures! Is the Puerto Rican place you had in mind called Parada 22, by any chance? it looks like a darling little place.

Here is some rice cooked without a lid. Small casserole dish and plain long-grained white rice, 1 cup rice and a touch over 1 cup water. Cooked at 300F on SuperSteam for 30 mins and left to sit in closed oven for just about 10 mins more. Came out quite lovely, actually. Last night's salmon, cooked on Steam Broil @ 500F for about 12 mins and then another 6 mins Broil @ 500F. Perhaps a tad overcooked although it still had a moistness and nice texture. I did marinate the salmon first. It looked nicer than this pic would suggest. Served it with the Cook's Illustrated Grapefruit & Basil Relish (with some diced sweet onion added). I'd like to tweak the relish recipe a bit. I love grapefruit and it's nice with salmon but the final relish seemed lacking somehow.

What proportions of rice:water did you use, if you don't mind me asking? I noticed in the manual that they recommend cooking rice with less water than usual. For example, I have a long grain white rice which usually would be cooked on the stovetop with about twice as much water as rice, so 2 cups of rice and about 3.5 to 4 cups water. However, the CSO-300 steam oven manual recommends only using a proportion of 2 cups of rice and 2.25 cups of water. I used a little bit more water - maybe 2.5 cups - and cooked it on Super Steam @ 300F for about 25 (30?) mins in a casserole dish with a loose fitting lid and the rice was perfect. I did let it sit for a few moments before serving. Using less water means it comes to a boil faster and I guess the reduced evaporation in the oven means less water gives the same result as stovetop cooking with more water? They do say to cover the rice dish but I keep thinking that it should work out even without a lid. I'll give that a shot later.

Looks very nice! Did you use Steam Bake function? What temperature? Sometimes I finish things off with a short Broil, do you think that might have finished the skin better?

Did you have the cazeula covered while cooking in the steam oven? Why did you start the simmer on the stovetop, just curious? I did rice in the steam oven and thought the benefit was that I didn't have to watch anything on the stove top! And yes, the pan that comes with the oven warps at higher heats. It returns to flat/square after cooling down so far, but it is annoying. I would like to get a better quality one. I find the routine of using the oven is pretty easy now but it took a few times to get used to it. I have a drawer right below the oven that fits the crumb tray or cooking pan/rack so they are handy but easily stored away. Each time I use the steam function I empty the lower drip pan and rinse it with hot water and quickly wipe out the oven to remove any standing water. Then I leave the door open a bit. There's nothing to it, once I got used to it - only takes a minute. When I want to bake/toast, it's easy to put in the crumb tray.

This link won't work for me as it is. Not sure why, this is another attempt: Nordicware

rotuts, just noticed that the Cuisinart's Recipe Booklet has a recipe for Peaches, maybe that's what made me think of doing the nectarines though I do like to cook fruit now and again, anyway. The steam oven is lovely for cooking any type of braised dish, of course. I did a beef 'rouladen' stuffed with spinach and asiago cheese, slow-cooked in a tomato sauce. The steam oven requires less sauce/liquid, less chance of boil-over, easier clean-up. And of course generates less heat in the kitchen which is nice as we get into warm weather. I have cooked salmon in the oven also, but just used Steam Bake. I am going to do some fresh sockeye fillets tomorrow and plan to try the Broil Steam function - for some reason, I don't think I have used that setting yet! Salmon is lovely in the oven and I could see playing with a couple of functions and temperatures for that fish. Halibut and scallops and other seafood also.

I do not have any specific sous vide equipment although I know I can do quite a bit with a pot of water and a good thermometer. Or a beer cooler, right? I was seriously considering the Anova and then heard about the new one being developed now. I missed the good Kickstarter prices, but don't mind buying once they are commercially released. I started to read the Sous Vide thread several times but always got sidetracked. So, the answer is that I have started to look into it, but have not clarified the things I should try to do.

Oh, I think I see what you mean - the fish falls apart into pieces because of the slashes? So you can't neatly pull the top fillet away? Is that it? I'm not even the best person to answer this question, because I don't cook whole fish that often. When I do, I don't make slashes. I just put some lemon slices or whatever in the centre of the fish and fold it back together and cook it. I am usually cooking whole salmon and that's a fairly firm-fleshed fish, so maybe that's part of the issue? Do you need to do the slashes? I should let someone else answer at this point though!!!

I really want to try and replicate those, now that I have read about them! Still not sure about the best combo of ground meat, patty size, steam temp and cooking time. I am very much looking forward to reading about your adventures in these areas!!! I did steam a couple of patties once - they were decent-enough ground beef patties from the meat dept at local grocer, but I would like to use my own. The ones I did were probably cooked too long, but they were still tasty. I seared them in a hot pan after steaming, but you wouldn't do that for the CT-style ones, is that right? Also, tried steaming a steak, followed by searing. I overcooked it a bit so it wasn't as rare as we would have liked but it was nice to have a steak that was so evenly cooked. Some people might prefer the standard grilled steak with pink centre and seared edges though. I need to try these things again and perfect them!!! I tend to do other things while I am cooking and don't often write things down, which makes replication or perfecting a recipe or procedure difficult. I should be more careful about noting what I am doing, temps and times, etc. Edited to add: I should mention that I was trying to do fairly low-temp steaming with the burgers and steak - I think I was steaming at 140F for the steak and 150F for the patty - but those temps, combined with a fairly long and hot sear, resulted in a bit of overcooking for our tastes.

What type of knife do you use? Filleting knife? Are you looking for something different or more detailed than this: http://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/how-to/article/how-to-fillet-and-serve-whole-fish

The skin was delicious! Crispy but not dried out, if that makes sense. May have started to blister, but I covered it with tin foil toward end of cooking. Not sure that this was necessary, to be honest, as steam may have kept skin from over-cooking. The steam oven will definitely be my first choice for cooking chicken in future. The above bird was about 1.7 kg but oven could easily fit a slightly larger one - 2 kg or 4.5 lbs or so. Also, wanted to say that I used the oven on a fairly warm day and was pleased that it generated so much less heat than the big oven would. I use it for reheating food all the time. Steam Bake between 200F and 300F. Leftovers are lovely with a bit of steam. Reheated some fried rice for lunch and it was perfect. Also used it to steam eggs in shell instead of boiling in water (Steam only @ 210F for about 10 mins) - egg yolks were still just a tad soft. Also, steamed some fresh sliced nectarines - nice way to intensify flavour and keep fruit from drying out. Would be very nice with a few drops of Grand Marnier and some pecans or hazelnuts (I have a few hazelnut trees), maybe with ice cream. Have also used Super Steam to cook rice. Their recommendation in book is to use a ratio of white rice to water of 2 cups to 2.25 cups. I used about 2.5 cups of water and it seemed just right to me. Used a 1.8L Corningware casserole dish with a slightly loose-fitting glass lid. I followed their instructions for temp of 300F. I used Bake Steam for roasting some tomatoes for a sauce - I think i followed their suggestion of 450F but they weren't big tomatoes and I think they were done in about 10 mins. Lovely outcome with those! I ate one before it got to the sauce.

I made some low-sugar raspberry-blueberry jam from last summer's frozen berries, which of course cried out for some bread to keep them company. (Also thought I would throw in a pic of the mango chutney that I made at the same time, Very tasty with bread and cheese!) Four Hour Baguettes cooked in Cuisinart steam oven on the Bread setting. I've made a few batches of this bread in the steam oven. All have turned out quite well, with a nice chewy crust. I don't do a lot of bread-making so not a lot to compare this to, but it was quickly eaten. I used the lowest Steam setting (100F) for proofing a couple of times.

Whole roast chicken - about 1.7 kg - so, almost 3.75 lbs. Not a great pic of the uncooked bird, I basically followed the cookbook suggestion. Made a paste with crushed garlic and some herbs (fresh rosemary and oregano, dried thyme) and black pepper - rubbed the bird with it and let it sit overnight. Sprinkled salt and lemon juice over bird and put onion and lemon piece in cavity (does this really do anything, I just always do it). Cooked at Bake Steam at 425F (the manual suggests 450F) for around an hour. Meat was well above minimum temp as both husband and I like rare beef or even pink pork but we hate pink chicken. Final meat temp was 175F or so. I used a bit of tinfoil toward end as bird was browning nicely already. Pic looks darker than reality. Even with meat cooked to this temp, the bird was moist and lovely.

Finally located some of my pics (moved from one house to another, just switched to a new laptop, etc): Pork tenderloin cooked at 150F with Steam only (for about an hour?). When meat was a little above 140F, seared it in a hot pan for a few minutes. Meat was a little above 150 when served, I believe. Still had a lovely little bit of pink (not sure how clear the pic is) and meat had a lovely texture - so easy to dry pork out, but this stayed moist. Probably best pork tenderloin I have made! I thought I also had pic of final presentation but details are meat sliced and served over fresh baby spinach, fresh chopped mushrooms. Blueberry-onion sauce served on top. Some fresh sliced Campari tomatoes on side.

rotuts, thank you so much for your complete write-up and photos! I hope you'll share your future 'experiments' also. Really happy to hear that you have finally had a chance to try out the Cuisinart. One question: When you say (above) that you used Full Steam @ 400, do you mean the Super Steam setting?

I also liked the write-up that accompanied that image on the Web page: http://www.genuineideas.com/ArticlesIndex/combi.html Nice little discussion about how humidity can improve the cooking process - and very interesting comparison of using the Cuisinart Steam Oven for cooking chicken!

I've been using the oven so much that it requires topping up every few days. Instead of just adding more water, I rinse it out and occasionally add a bit of vinegar to the rinse water before refilling with tap water. I don't think I'd leave it sitting for more than a week or two without rinsing and refilling but maybe the steam function itself makes this unnecessary?

There is the Sharp SuperSteam Microwave Convection but it's a bit pricier: http://www.sharpusa.com/ForHome/HomeAppliances/Microwaves/Archives/AX1200S.aspx Amazon reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/Sharp-AX-1200K-SuperSteam-Multi-Purpose-Black/dp/B001QFYDRE

I don't work with chocolate so I can't speak to the specific tools and equipment you might have. I'm no expert on organizing either, but I like the challenge of creating good work space so I'll throw out a couple of general ideas. Your tables take up most of the lower wall space and it looks like have you already have filled most of the space below those tables. However, there are inexpensive plastic units with sliding drawers (in various sizes)if you wanted to put some smaller items together and still keep it below the tables. That might help organize a few things. It looks like you have used lower wall and floor space around the edge of the room. That leaves upper walls (where there are no windows), the ceiling and the middle of the room on the floor. If your space allows it, you could have some kind of central island (making use of the middle of the room/floor) - can't tell if the room is large enough for this, though. You could use the ceiling to suspend something like a pot rack or baskets. You have some single shelves above the tables - it looks as though those shelves would fit below the windows and you could then use this space for cabinets which could hold more than a single shelf. This does mean buying some cabinets but home stores usually have less expensive ones for storage. But as I said, I don't know your working materials and tools very well, so these types of storage may not suit your needs!

I have an LG fridge with separate digital temp control for fridge and freezer also, but i have never tested to see how accurate the interior temps are compared to the settings. I suspect that you may have done so - if so, wondering how they matched up? Or maybe I should get one of those little Thermoworks ones and find out! :-) Also, your dog story made me laugh, especially filing down the dog bite marks.

I recently bought the Cuisinart Combo Convection Steam Oven and it has a Super Steam function recommended for rice cooking. I just tried it and was very pleasantly surprised. It's very easy - I just used a Corningware casserole dish, put in rice and water, covered and let it steam cook at 300F for 25 mins. The rice was almost perfect (I'd probably use a tad more water for my rice than what they recommended.) Although I occasionally thought about buying a rice cooker, I just kept using the stovetop. Most of the time, the results were OK but the Cuisinart is far easier!