Category Archives: Combi Steamer

With this chilly weather upon us I couldn’t resist buying this little Butterflied Leg of Lamb.  It was from Argyle Prestige Meats, boned, vac packed and ready to cook. Then I stumbled across some Baby Beetroot on special and some Kipfler potatoes and the mind got thinking …?

Photo: Food24.com

Roast lamb,  juicy and delicious with some lovely spices and baby roast vegetables…. I am going to cook them all in the Combi Steam Oven together because the Combi Steamer gives the best results for roasting meat and I don’t want to wash up any more trays.  If you keep the vegetables small they should all take about the same amount of time.  The lamb is usually 180° for 15 minutes per 500g plus another say 15 minutes as we like our lamb pretty rare.  So half an hour in total, the beets and potatoes will be fine also in that time as they are all small.  Try to remember to always have things cut about the same size when you do something like this.

Conclusion:  The small beets were fine, the half ones weren’t cooked in the half hour.  The potatoes were great and all cooked perfectly.  I would suggest if you are worried about them then Steam the beetroot for 10 minutes before roasting.

1kg Butterfly leg of lamb (bring it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature) Ask your butcher to butterfly it for you.   You can keep the bone and shank for some stock.
2tsp Sumac
1tsp ground Cumin
2 cloves garlic, crushed with some salt

My meat came already scored and boned which is great as it wont take long to cook.  Rub it with a bit of olive oil. Mix all the spices with the salt and garlic and rub over the lamb making sure it goes into the slits that are cut. Set aside in the solid Stainless oven dish with the ‘tail’ end or thinner end of the lamb doubled over. Scrub the Beetroot and Potatoes well and cut in similar sizes.  If your beetroot are not really small you will have to cut them in half.  Just trim the tops, I am not going to peel them, nor the potatoes. Toss the potatoes and beetroot in a little olive oil and sprinkle with a little salt. Preheat the Combi Steam Oven at 180°.  Normally you don’t have to preheat at all with this appliance but because it’s a short cooking time I will today.  When it’s hot, adjust the program to Combination 180°C + 30% moisture for 30 minutes.  There is no need to set another cooking stage but if you like you could set a Warming/Resting stage for 10 minutes @ 50°.  The moisture is going to keep the meat juicy and succulent!  If you don’t have a Combi Steam oven then roast at the above temperature. If you haven’t rested it in the oven, remove, cover and rest for at least 10 minutes.  Squeeze over half a lemon and slice. Serve with some Greek yoghurt which has been mixed with a little crushed garlic, lemon juice and 1/2 tsp ground cumin. I am also serving it with some Char grilled Eggplant that I just happen to have in the fridge which I have reheated in the Steam oven with the leaves of the baby beetroot.  Drizzle with a little sticky Balsamic Vinegar…..Yum 🙂

The lamb was perfect, it had a delicious spicy ‘crust’ almost from the Sumac & Cumin on the skin.

The other night in the local pub we were lucky enough to win the Meat Tray!  So now it’s a great time of year to do something with the little roasts that we won (and stuck in the freezer last week).  So being a Sunday night it’s family feast time when my kids come over to eat some of mum’s home cooked food or be guinea pigs on a recipe that I’ve been testing.  They don’t mind, you know living away from home in your 20’s you’re really not cooking much for yourself with the array of wonderful and cheap restaurants we have here in Sydney.

So I am going to use the Combi Steamer (of course!) but I want to trick the program so I can get my vegetables to cook at the same time….

The only way that we can test this out is to use it, and adjust it next time if necessary.  There isn’t much I don’t know about different functions on ovens and there is always a way that you can ‘fix’ it as I use to say.

Most brands have Auto programs for Roasting.   If you have a Probe, use it!  If you don’t then follow my method below, calculate the cooking time based on the weight of the meat.

So I have a small 1.2kg piece of rolled Pork Scotch Fillet with a little crackling on the top.  This should take about an hour in total but I was going to test the Auto Program, Roast, Pork with Crackling.  When I put the meat in and turned it to this program the time appeared at 3h 25min.  That was far too long for my little roast!  My model doesn’t have the probe which I think would be fantastic as that will give you the correct internal temperature depending on how you prefer your meat to be cooked.  The time would then be adjusted accordingly so there is no concern about times initially appearing like this.  The core temperature of roast pork should be somewhere in the vicinity of 65-80° so because I can’t tell that precisely I am going to have to use the old fashioned method of time and feel.  The weird bit about the Auto programs is that it doesn’t know how large your piece of meat actually is so how does it know when it’s cooked?  I have asked the Home Economists who work for Miele and they tell me that there is a Sensor built into the appliance. On the Auto Program there is the ability to make the program a little longer or shorter next time you use it but it’s all about using this appliance to it’s full capacity so I will do a manual Combination Combi Steam program this time and try the Auto Roast next time when I have 3+ hours and a larger piece of meat.

Make notes at home when you cook something like this, giving the weight of the meat and a note about how it came out.  This is a great way to build a reference for yourself.

Roasting time in a traditional oven for Pork is 160-180°, allowing 25-30 minutes per 500g plus 25-30 minutes extra overall.  Plus resting time which should be at least 15 minutes, covered. 

Remember I said that I am going to try to trick this program so that I don’t have to use my other oven for the vegetables.  As I am also roasting apples with the pork I am going to have a large amount of moisture.  This may be a problem but this is the method I am going to use:

1.      In the Solid Tray toss your vegetables, quartered apples, baby onions and whole garlic cloves in a little olive oil.  Sprinkle with a little sea salt and put into the oven, on the lowest shelf, without the meat @ 180° for 20 minutes.  This is going to kick start them.

2.     Whilst this first stage is cooking, score the rind of the pork with a sharp knife and rub in a little salt.  When the first stage has finished, put the pork directly onto the wire rack and place over the top of the vegetables that are already on the bottom shelf.  This will then allow the vegetables to roast in all that delicious pork fat 🙂

3.    Turn the oven from it’s previous temperature to Combination Mode and set 2 Stages of cooking.  The first one – 200° + 30% moisture for 20 minutes then Stage 2, 180° + 50% moisture for 40 minutes.

Combination program as you set it above will use a combination of heat and steam (that’s why the Combi Steamer is SO good for roasting meat as (like bread, see my article in the Bread Category) because that’s the environment you need for perfectly roast and succulent meat!

Conclusion:       Vegetables were perfectly cooked like this, the roasted Apples and Garlic made the meal, Meat was juicy and succulent, Crackling was fabulous!

Delicious served with perfectly cooked Asparagus from the Steam Oven. Cook for 2 minutes on 100% steam.

and a great bottle of Cape Mentelle, Cabinet Merlot from the Margaret River 🙂