Kitchen

Reply to: Hi everyone. I work as a home economist for an importer in Australia, creating recipes and teaching people how to use their Gaggenau and Neff appliances. I have had a fair amount of experience with combination steam ovens and I have a Neff one in my home. I LOVE these appliances and use my combi every day, but they certainly can be difficult to get your head around initially and the lack of good (simple!) resources and recipes is a problem. As far as the drying and smells issue goes, I would certainly recommend both wiping/drying the inside cavity of the oven after a rinse or clean, and leaving the door open overnight. annelucelle, the rinse cycle with most of these ovens will recommend you refill the water tank and empty the reservoir as it does help eliminate smells after cooking. Though the compartments containing the water for cooking are separate, I find if you cook something smelly like fish or green vegetables and don't get rid of both the tank water and reservoir water, next time you open the oven it'll smell like what you cooked last time - even if you've cleaned and wiped it out. I got so frustrated with not being able to refer my customers to a good website or book that I started a combi-steam blog and facebook page a few months ago - one of these days I'd like to write a non-branded 'steam oven bible' cookbook, too, but we'll see how the blog goes first! ;) At the risk of self-promotion, if you're after recipes or want to contact me with any queries you can visit Steam & Bake here. There's a link to the facebook community through the website too, and I would dearly love to build it into a helpful resource for all of us - though I work with these appliances every day, I suffer the same lack of information as everyone else, so discussion is always welcome! I don't think anyone else here has mentioned it, but another great blog I read is Cookwise - Trudy is another home economist with a passion for combi steam ovens and has lots of good recipes. BTW I don't know her, I just really like her blog! I'll do my best to answer any other questions posted on this thread, if I can - hope that helps.

Q