How do you make culinary steam?

Answer 1

There are a couple of ways to make "culinary steam". The first is by immersing a food, like rice in water, covering the pot and boiling it. But there is also something called a "bain Marie". It's a simple oven steamer. The dish to be cooked is placed in another vessel and placed in the oven. The holding vessel is filled with water and the dish is cooked at a constant temperature (the boiling point of water) and the top steamed at the same time. There are also steamers like rice cookers and perforated trays that can be suspended above boiling water while the food in the trays is steam cooked. The Chinese use bamboo baskets suspended over water boiling in a wok for the same purpose.