Stupid Steamer Cooking Question

[neadods]

I have a Black and Decker food steamer, lovely tool. I've never used it for rice. Now that I want to use it for rice, I can't lay my hands on the directions. So, here's the stupid question - when you cook rice in a steamer, do you put rice in a bowl with the proper amount of water and then steam it, or do you just put dry rice in a bowl and it pulls the requisite moisture out of the steam?

As thanks in advance, here are two one-person full-meal steamer recipes.

CHICKEN MEAL
1 boneless breast chicken
1 head broccoli
1 medium red potato or 2 small ones, chopped
chicken marinade/sauce

Put the chicken breast (not yet marinated) on the bottom of the steamer. Cut the potato(es) into chunks and scatter them around the edges of the steamer. Put the head of the broccoli directly on top of the chicken.

Steam for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Put a little sauce on chicken before serving, and a dab of butter on the potatoes.

SALMON MEAL
1 chunk salmon, with skin on one side
handful of snow peas
button mushrooms or 1 large portobello cap
raspberry vinagrette

Put salmon skin-side down on bottom of steamer. Loosely pack snow peas around edges. Top with portobello cap/mushrooms.

Steam for ~10 minutes until salmon is done. Put a splash of vinagrette on the salmon before serving.

No, they're not particularly exciting meals, except for the sauces. But they cover the major nutrional values, and can be pulled together in minutes, and can go cook on their own while you do something else - read mail, shower, whatever. Admit it - 9 times out of 10, it's the sauce or marinade that makes the meal anyway!

Next up - experiments with divided crockpots.

Comments

[bentleywg.livejournal.com]

The Amazon listing has a link to a PDF of the product manual.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Perfect! Thanks!

[twistedchick]

Divided crockpots? My crockpot experience is fairly limited, but it kept me and the kitty alive when we were snowed in for 10 days a few years ago. Stew and homemade bread and lots of watching snow come down.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

I got it at Linens and Things, IIRC; it's got one chamber roughly the size of a medium chicken, and one chamber about the size of two medium baking potatoes. Good for doing things like corned beef in one side and brussels sprouts in the other, or applesauce-smothered pork on one side and baking sweet potatoes in the other.