Anyone shopping for a new oven these days is in for an impressive learning experience, as the number of innovations that have been added to cooking and baking technology is quite significant. Among an even more comprehensive list, they will find ranges, ovens, range tops, cooktops, wall ovens, double wall ovens, triple wall ovens, microwave and wall oven combos, freestanding ovens, slide-in ovens, warming drawers, microwave drawers, french door ovens, not to mention European convection, standard convection, speedcook, halogen heating and many forms of intuitive cooking. And add to all this, the introduction of what Miele refers to as combi-sets, where even the individual components of a conventional cooktop that once seemed inseparable are offered as separate units, to be installed in an almost infinite variety of configurations. Some come with their own ventilation systems, built in, and some have to be vented. Some are multifunctional, and some are unifunctional. There’s a lot to take in, and a lot to ponder. Of the most up to date advanced technological contributions to enhance the home kitchen culinary experience, two additional oven processes clearly emerge as leaders: Steam Ovens and Speed Ovens. do you know the difference between these two? To understand the difference, it’s important to know what each one actually does.
Steam Ovens
There are no obvious design components of steam ovens that would serve to distinguish them from any other of the ordinary ovens available for today’s kitchens. The difference lies in the performance, or more aptly put, the supplemental support that steam technology gives to conventional oven functionality. The added presence of steam to the various baking processes imparts a very needed element to boost result satisfaction, in everything you cook. What a lot of consumers do not know is that by adding steam, all the traditional methods of baking, broiling and roasting are completed quite faster than when cooking without it. There are both steam ovens and steam microwave ovens. There are numerous other advantages from steam technology, enjoined with the dry heat that conventional ovens use. To list a few:
More Delicious Results, Dependably: Steam technology has, for a long time, been a guarded trade secret among the most effective culinary processes employed by chefs in professional kitchens. Foods cooked with steam are imparted with an enhanced degree of flavor and nutrient retention. Some of the credit belongs to the fact that the steam serves to reduce the overall cooking time, while the application of moisture is the home chef’s finest assurance that whatever is steam cooked will taste delicious all on its own, without need of other ingredients or spices that add flavor..
Ideal for Reheating: Steam allows you to retain every bit of flavor and that “just cooked” freshness, for those times when someone is late for dinner, or when that succulent roast you had for dinner starts to call you from the fridge, as a tasty little midnight snack. Now, reheating food will never mean that you’ll risk drying it out.
Increased Nutrient Value of Foods: When food is cooked with steam, valuable vitamins and nutrients are left in the dish, so they can go to where they’ll do the most good: your family. Steam cooking is the leading method of healthy cooking, over baking, boiling and microwaving.
Best Way to Provide a Low-Fat Diet: With foods that are cooked in a steam oven, there is no extra requirement to add heavy sauces or salt to the dish. In other ovens that cook exclusively by a dry heat method, it often becomes necessary to cook with the aid of fats and oils, that essentially replace the moisture that the dry heat removes. With steam, even basting is not needed during the cooking process.
Cleaning is a Breeze: With steam to clean your oven, splatters and spills can easily be removed by wiping with a damp cloth at the end of the cooking process, whereas the dry heat of conventional ovens–well, you know how difficult that type of cleaning can be.
One Steam Oven Drawback
Because of the way that steam affects the outer surface of foods and dishes, it is not possible to produce the golden-baked, fully browned and caramelized results that complete some dishes. To be able to steam foods and crisp or brown them nicely at the end, a combination steam oven is the answer.
About Speed Ovens
Ever since their inception, microwave ovens s have been thought of as a means of conveniently accomplishing a variety of culinary efforts, many of which had previously even been time-prohibitive. Primarily reserved for any occasion when an expedient cooking process is needed, microwave ovens also been found to secure their own special place in the superior way it manages to produce certain results for certain foods. They can be ideal for melting chocolate, cooking vegetables with little or no water, they’re great for melting butter and bacon cooks more evenly in a microwave oven than when cooked by any other method. In the past few years, microwave ovens have kind of taken a back seat to a surge of other clever and convenient cooking technology, however the Speed Oven changes all that.
Understanding the Speed Oven
Essentially, a Speed Oven provides the missing link that has always been needed, in order for the microwave oven to produce the same level of crisping, browning and golden effects that the microwave’s counterpart, the conventional oven has always accomplished. Alternately, it manages to fill in the gap where conventional baking technology has failed to go: the power to deliver fully cooked foods and dishes with microwave speed. For anyone who is displeased with these shortcomings that are inherent in both ovens, a Speed Oven is exactly what you need. And for anyone who is replacing an existing microwave or even buying a new one, it is highly advisable that you first look at the possibility of getting a Speed Oven, instead. Speed Ovens have successfully managed to harness the heating power of Halogen lighting to do what they could not previously do, and even faster than before.
What to Expect From a Speed Oven
A Speed Oven combines convection, microwave cooking and usually a grill element. Typically, the Speed Oven can be either used on any one of these modes, or in a combination of all three. They offer preset roasting and baking programs to produce the ideal results, quickly. the majority of Speed Ovens are sold as built-in wall ovens and sold either singly or in combination with a regular oven. At the top of the line, you’ll find Speed Ovens that deliver 1000 microwave Watts, True European convection, infrared broiling and a bunch of various operating modes and programs.
One Speed Oven Drawback:
Speed Oven technology does not come cheaply. The low end models go for around $1500, and the high-end (non-combined) models run around $3000.