Academic & Business Writing W5 - Final Draft
I am doing a review of the Itaki steamer
The Itaki Steamer is a portable device designed with the everyday worker in mind. Toting such features as single servings, ease of portability, cooking from your workspace and healthy meals. It comes with an optional downloadable recipe book, an egg cooker attachment, 2 metal bowls for cooking, a plastic interior lid and a small muslin bag to carry it around in. For my review I will fill it with the contents of my favourite dish - Japanese Chicken Curry, carry it on my nightly walk to stimulate going to work and then put it in the refrigerator for a few hours. Then cook my lunch in the kitchen.
The first issue I ran into was my Itaki was broken. I was not able to latch it shut, thus preventing me from being able to use the handles on top to carry it. This also meant there was a risk of contents spilling about. If not for the muslin bag, I would have no means of carrying it. Unfortunately, the muslin bag is quite thin and the Itaki suffered minor scratches whilst in my backpack and the lid was ajar after returning from my walk. The alternative option to pre-packing your food in the Itaki is to pre-package your food in Tupperware before going to work. For me, however, this would be more inconvenient as I frequently work in different locations and having to carry twice as much is not desirable.
My second issue is the lack of recipes or ratio help. Some recipes can not be easily broken done to single servings and the Itaki pretty much leaves what you cook up to the users discretion only with limited advice and suggestions. As well, given that the whole concept of the Itaki is to steam it would be beneficial if they provided a ratio of Itaki cup of water to time somewhere. To better help you decipher how much water to add into the steamer. Lack of guidance aside I put 1 cup up chicken breast, 1 cup of chopped carrot, and 1/2 cup of chopped onion in the large bowl (bottom bowl). I also added 1 cube of Glico Curry and 1 Itaki cup of water (again no idea of the ratio since I was steaming vs cooking on a stove). In the small metal bowl (top bowl) I put rice and water according to the Itaki guide suggestion. With no reference as to how long it needed to cook or how long 1 Itaki cup of water would utilize, I plugged it in and waited. 25 minutes later it shut itself off (out of water to steam) but was not fully cooked so I added more water to the bottom level. It required an additional 15 minutes to fully cook, putting the time at 40 minutes. 15 minutes longer than if I had cooked it on my stovetop.
Some of the dish cooked well while others did not. The white rice was good, but the sprouted grain rice I often mix with white rice did not. It was crunchy. My chicken, veggies and curry cooked well. Unfortunately there was some level of condensation and my curry was quite runny. That aside it tasted fine. Not great, but passable. But you could taste the overall difference steaming made vs frying.
While the Itaki has some major flaws - presenting more to transport to/from work, being broken upon buying and a large learning curve - I find it to be a cute accessory that would more likely be beneficial to students as opposed to the office worker. Largely due to lack of cooking utensils in a dorm room. I give it 1 thumb up, 1 thumb sideways.
