Cuisinart Combo Steam/Convection Oven (Part 3)

[csingley]

For frozen bread, I either just directly toast slices out of the freezer (like setting 3 or 4) or else thaw bread, slice it, and toast slices as per usual.

[Franci]

On 9/18/2016 at 8:28 AM, Franci said:

I need to call the customer service to sort the staining of the roof of the oven...

 

 

Basically the answer I got is: I don't know. Use a damp cloth if it still stained maybe depends from what you cook in it

[Kerry Beal]

14 minutes ago, Franci said:

 

Basically the answer I got is: I don't know. Use a damp cloth if it still stained maybe depends from what you cook in it

How very helpful!

[ElainaA]

Guess who just had a birthday? (And whose husband really listens to her.)

I have family arriving tomorrow for several days stay and then a crazy week next week so I won't be experimenting with this for some time. But i can sit and stare at it.

[Okanagancook]

Of course you can start using this little baby right away with confidence.  It easily makes toast for four all at once.  Or, use the warm function to heat plates for meal time.  

 

Anybody else have have some easy tips for immediate casual use?

[NWKate]

...pizza!

[Franci]

40 minutes ago, Okanagancook said:

Anybody else have have some easy tips for immediate casual use?

 

I'm one of the newcomers but I would just   roast some nugget potatoes in there...

 

tonight for the first time I baked a bread for breakfast. With coconut flour and chocolate chips. I did the 2nd rise in the oven, steam function at 100F. For me it's way too much. After 10 minutes I turned it off and left there for a short time.

Bake with bread function at 400f for 20 minutes but had to liwer it the last 5 minutes. Another time, i'll make a comparison wirh my convection oven with steamer

 

 

Edited September 22, 2016 by Franci (log)

[kayb]

2 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Of course you can start using this little baby right away with confidence.  It easily makes toast for four all at once.  Or, use the warm function to heat plates for meal time.  

 

Anybody else have have some easy tips for immediate casual use?

 

Baking anything you don't have room for in your oven because it's already full with other stuff!

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

3 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Of course you can start using this little baby right away with confidence.  It easily makes toast for four all at once.  Or, use the warm function to heat plates for meal time.  

 

Anybody else have have some easy tips for immediate casual use?

 

Chicken thighs!

 

[ElainaA]

Thanks for the ideas! The problem is actually making a place for it in my kitchen - things are going to have to be moved and something might have to go. Right now it is sitting in the living room.....

[rotuts]

toast    make sure the bread is fresh  and even better   thicker cut    english muffins

 

and again , chicken thighs.

Edited September 22, 2016 by rotuts (log)

[rotuts]

@Franci  

 

where did you get that little silicone baking mold ?

 

are you happy baking in silicone ?   Ive never tried it.

 

thanks

[Franci]

7 hours ago, rotuts said:

@Franci  

 

where did you get that little silicone baking mold ?

 

are you happy baking in silicone ?   Ive never tried it.

 

thanks

 

Here

Honestly, I use silicone more for freezing stuff in it. Soups and pasta sauces a lot and semifreddi. These mini loaves are a nice size and fit well in the CSO. I've baked brioche also in it . It smells a little right out of the oven but doesn't leave a scent on food as some other nasty silicone molds I've tried. I've also a couple Pavoni professionals and those are much better!

[Saci Pererê]

21 hours ago, Okanagancook said:

Anybody else have have some easy tips for immediate casual use?

 

Veggies of all sorts... break up some cauliflower florets, toss with oil, steam-bake 400ish 30 mins. Potatoes, peel, cube, ditto 40 mins. Beets..yum. Two big sweet potatoes. Steam-bake red peppers. 20 mins. Etc, etc. Basically all the stuff that you know is good roasted, just done faster and with less hassle. 

 

Personally, I've been using the CSO as a "robot sous-chef." Poach some eggs in a plate while I'm cooking off a steak. Roast a head of garlic for a salad dressing - normally I don't roast garlic unless I'm doing a dozen heads at once. Roast a few hot peppers for me to mash into a sauce. Make two dinner rolls. Refresh yesterday's baguette while I sautee some veggies. Keep stuff warm while I finish making dinner. Roast stuffed veggies while I grill a chicken breast. Toast some pecans. Steam that last bit of honey out of the bottom of the jar so I can pour it on waffles.

 

All very, very convenient! Especially for doing small things that I'd normally only do in bulk (the roast garlic, yeah I'm probably wasting tons of energy, but I'm saving on storage hassle). 

Edited September 22, 2016 by Saci Pererê (log)

[chefmd]

Pork belly 300 degrees steam bake for 2 hours

 

[Okanagancook]

Brilliant!  I gotta get me some belly. Do you think one could broil it afterwards for some crispy crackling?

[chefmd]

I am planning to broil it before serving.  Tasted a little piece, tender and delicious, fatty part melts in the mouth

[Saci Pererê]

2 hours ago, chefmd said:

I am planning to broil it before serving.  Tasted a little piece, tender and delicious, fatty part melts in the mouth

  

Yum! I gotta try some pig in the little oven, thanks for the inspiration.  That bit of meat looks perfect for chopping up some, sauté with tomatoes/onions/garlic, instant pasta sauce! Just to show off something in completely the opposite direction, I've been making a lot of middle eastern / mediterranean rim food lately, trying to be healthy(ish). The CSO is such a help, cooks off all kinds of veggies for me to combine into dishes later. For instance:

 

So this is a zuchinni, cherry tomato, and greens salad in the lower right - all stuff that I had roasted earlier in the day (tomatos collapse into a delicious mush/proto-sauce).  Orzo salad is boiled, of course. But the stuffed veggies! The red peppers I steam/baked the day before, super-easy to peel, stuff with goat cheese and convection bake for 20 mins. The stuffed zucchini (standing) was just some extra that I cored out with my veggie peeler, added goat cheese, baked with the peppers. Multiply all by two and I had a great dinner for my sweetie and me.

 

I'd NEVER have done this my regular oven for less than an entire dinner party. Way too much hassle - pre-heating, having to clean an entire sheet pan afterwards (yes, I use parchment paper or my sil-plat, but you still gotta clean), bending over (it's a range oven), guessing at timing. For me, that's the real convenience of the CSO, it's just so easy to do little things that otherwise would be a big production.

 

Along the same lines:

 

Clockwise from the top left - Steam-Roasted cauliflower (425/30 min) with a yogurt/herb sauce. Steam-Roasted Brussel Sprouts (425/30 min)with cherry tomatoes and feta. Store-bought pita bread toasted at 5. Ripe garden tomato with a sauce of tahini whizzed up with Steam-Roasted garlic (400/20 min).

 

Lastly, just experimenting:

 

Whole-wheat flatbread with black sesame seeds (oops, I rolled a bit too thin). Your basic bread flour/wheat flour/water/salt/yeast dough, risen overnight in the fridge, roll out and throw in the oven. The only trick here was to ramp up the Convection bake as high as it goes (500) and to bake on the back of the roasting pan (flip it over). Preheat it till it's good and hot, then pull it out on the toaster rails (dry kitchen towel!) when you toss the bread on. Worked great!

 

I made a plum tart the other night - blind-baked leftover paté sucrée from the freezer (defrosted earlier), spread some strawberry jam on the bottom, cut plums in half and stuck them on top, Steam-Roast to finish (400ish/30 min, but I pulled it out when I could smell baked plums). Took maybe an hour total, most of which I spend watching Netflix. Tart was eaten faster than I could photograph it....  

 

Suffice to say, I use the CSO every day, one of the best kitchen purchases I've ever made.

 

 

Edited September 23, 2016 by Saci Pererê (log)

[rotuts]

@Saci Pererê   

 

"robot sous-chef."

 

nicely said.  the robot part for me means steam cooking is fairly forgiving.  not completely , after all , you might have to fire a Robot , but probably not. if youve

 

paid careful attention to the programing.

 

Kudos your say.

 

 

brilliant ideas , BTW.   save up , get a CSB II  and an electrician !

 

you, of course, have an IntatntPot ?  the perfect complement to the CSB.

Edited September 23, 2016 by rotuts (log)

[rotuts]

@chefmd 

 

brilliant on the P.B.  steam broil ?   I love steam broil !

 

but , alas , @Okanagancook  beet me to it.

 

[ed.:  Attention @Okanagancook :    ]

 

 

Edited September 23, 2016 by rotuts (log)

[Saci Pererê]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

you, of course, have an IntatntPot ?  the perfect complement to the CSB.

 

Thank you for the comments, Rotuts. At risk of hijacking this whole thread, what is the advantage of an InstaPot-type Pressure cookers? I agree that pressure cookers are essential, but ordinary old-fashioned stove-top cookers. Fagor makes a great one. Here's my contrary view:

 

-Pressure cookers actually cook on the heat for very short times. Bring up to pressure (5-10 minutes, less if you pre-boil the water in an electric kettle like I often do), let cook for 0-5 mins, turn off the heat and let your food cook in the residual pressure/heat. The only exception is beans/hard starchy tubers (30 mins heat), stocks (40-60 min), or dense meaty stews/sauces (20-30 mins). Anyway, the timing is too short to really need an electric timer, at least not worth the trade-offs.

 

-If I want to depressurize the pot instantly, I put it under running cold water. Can't do that with an IP, at best you need to open the valve and have steam go all over the place.

 

-You often need to "stir" your food, or it can burn, or at least stratify in funny ways on longer cooks. Think of what happens to tomato sauce. I give my  pressure cooker a shake/flip (like sautéeing in a pan) and all is well. IP doesn't have a handle!

 

-Lastly, most important, the pressure cooker is a very sturdy, thick-walled cookpot in and of itself. I sautée in it all the time (lid off), either to prep food before pressure-cooking it (for instance onions going into a stew) or just a handy extra pot. 

 

-Sorry, I really can't see myself pre-programming a pressure cooker and walking away. I'm sure the IP has a good safety valve, but there is still plenty that can go wrong (bad seal, food stuck in the valve), you need to keep an eye on these things. 

 

Anyway, for my way of cooking, I love pressure cookers, but this is a place for Keep It Simple, Stupid!

 

Just my $0.02.....

 

 

Edited September 23, 2016 by Saci Pererê (log)

[rotuts]

there is a long long set of threads on the IP :

 

essentially : you push a button , set the time , it beeps   and you are done   ( more or less  ----   you sometimes wait a variable number of minutes for a timed release )

 

no attention required.

[Saci Pererê]

14 minutes ago, rotuts said:

no attention required.

 

I hear you (read you anyway). Call me old-fashioned but when it comes to pressure cooking, I like to pay attention to it. And, as I wrote, the actual "cooking with gas" portion is usually so short that it's no bother. Turn on the gas, bring it to pressure, turn it off, walk away.  But to each his own

[Franci]

I made bread again tonight. I followed a recipe exactly but for my taste this bread has too much yeast and rise too rapidly. I'll adjust that another time. Also, this was not a fair comparison in terms of timing...after the first rise, I divided the dough in the two sets of molds (85 g per cavity, another time, I'll do 70 g). I brushed with egg wash and I put 1 set in the CSO, steam function at 100 F for just 5 minutes and turned off. I put a bowl with hot water in my Cadco oven and put in the second set. I took them out of the oven after about 20 minutes, it was a very quick rise. And I brushed again with egg wash. Maybe the bowl of water was more effective, the bread on the right was in the Cadco.

 

The bread on the left went in the CSO bread function 375 for 18 minutes. Just out of the oven I put the little loaves on the  rack to cool on their sides, now standing to take a better picture.

 

 

The bread in the Cadco had to wait an additional 20 minutes for the oven to preheat (next time, I'll move the hot bowl and bread somewhere else to proof, so I can preheat the oven at the same time). Because of this the 2nd batch was a little over proofed. 

Of course, the kids couldn't wait to try even if the bread was too hot. I'll wait in the morning to really judge the difference.

My Cadco has a manual steam injection function (and I pressed for steam 3 times the firsts minutes of baking) then cooked at convection at 375 F for 18 minutes.

 

 

As you can see the bread in the Cadco, besides being over proofed, had that beautiful shine that was missing in the bread baked in the CSO. Also, my son, which tried far more bread than me and is my test taster found the bread in the CSO a little gummy. I'll try it again tomorrow morning and possible sacrifice myself with another trial in the next few days

 

Edited September 24, 2016 by Franci (log)

[gfweb]

@Franci How do you keep the silicon molds so clean. Mine get all blackened in spots. Won't scrub off