Steaming Basics: 97 Recipes Illustrated Step by Step (My Cooking Class)
Cooking by steaming offers a way to introduce heat into food without adding any fats. The Chinese have used this method for centuries for any number of dishes, especially for those popular dumplings that are the hallmark of dim-sum dining. Guillaumont covers a large range of such dishes, preparing delicacies such as duck and mushroom dumplings as well as steamed spare ribs. She even shows how to make the leavened dough encasing popular bao. Western dishes also profit from steaming techniques, as witnessed by a complicated haute-cuisine guinea-fowl ballotine and bacon-wrapped rabbit stuffed with dried fruits. Flan and other custard-based desserts also lend themselves to steaming. As with other volumes in this series, color photographs of both ingredients and techniques illustrate how to assemble and prepare each recipe. Interest in steaming as a low-fat alternative cooking method will increase demand for this title. --Mark Knoblauch