Steamer Reviews

I previously bought the Aroma ARC703G, which deserves all the bad reviews it's gotten from other ... customers. This one, however, is well worth the extra money. It makes perfectly cooked rice, from your basic long grain to your basmati and wild rice; even arborio, used in risottos, come out great. The key to buying a rice cooker is its pot -- is it nonstick or not? This one is nonstick, making cleanup easy and hassle free -- unlike the ARC703G's aluminum pot, which requires so much elbow grease to clean you'd be better off making rice the old-fashioned way. Like many other rice enthusiasts, I say Zojirushi is the best brand for rice cookers, but this Aroma model is great for those who make rice only every so often or have suddenly been intrigued by rice thanks to "Survivor II."

Tried out the steamer and found it to work perfectly. I'm a bigfan of steaming vegatables, and this product worked perfectly.

I would really give it 3 1/2 stars, but had to choose between three and four.

The larger ironing surface is very nice, and it is great for larger items. It has a nice indicator light system for heat and steam, but it takes longer than I anticipated to heat up between presses or steams. It is also quite bulky and heavy.

I iron most of my/our clothing and wanted something to cut down on ironing time. This item works pretty well, but you'll still need a regular iron unless you don't mind a few wrinkles or puckers.

It works very well great for pants, knits, mens shirts, and cloth napkins. Results are not as good for ladies shirts or table cloths. It would also be very handy with sewing projects, although I have not used it for that purpose. It works best on items that are damp rather than completely dry.

This is an above average piece put out by Farberware. I have never owned a Farberware piece so I cant necessarily compare to other pieces of the same brand. The upside of this piece is it has a nice finish to it. The Tri-Ply base if relatively thick, and I highly doubt it will bend or warp without abuse. The handles are all wide enough to grasp (None of those teenie two finger and thumb handles or knobs). I couldnt quite imagine a 5qt. size, so I was quite surprised at how large it actually was. This is supposed to be a dutch oven, but I will probabally use it as a stockpot (when not using it as a steamer).
The downside is that the sides are fairly thin. They wont keep much heat and may dent some if banged around. The handles also leave me an uneasy feeling as though they may break away from the sides of the pot. This is just my feeling as I am used to smaller heaftier handles such as on Calphalon or All-Clad lines.
All in all, I would buy this piece again. If you need a steamer, this is probabally your best buy. The sale price is worth it. This piece makes a great specialty piece, but would recommend the Calphalon or All-Clad line for frying pans or pots. Amazon sells Calphalon at sale prices quite often and I highly recommend purchasing them as they become available at discount. This piece would receive five stars if only the sides were just a tad thicker. Hope this helped!
Thanks, -Anrx4you

This steamer is great for dumplings and vegetables, though its shape makes it difficult to tell how much water is left in the pot you're steaming it over, and the bamboo comes into contact with very hot pans, producing a slight smoky smell sometimes. The more you use it, the more the bamboo will relax with age. My only real problem with this steamer is that it's somewhat small (6" diameter), but I couldn't find a larger one.

Try it for steaming vegetables, fish, or even rice. Inexpensive, but well-made.

This universal steamer is truly universal - not only does it fit my 6- and 8-quart Kitchenaid stockpots, it also does a pretty good job with my leCreuset 4.5 quart (26 cm) soup pot and my 10.5 inch cast iron deep skillet. If you own two steamers, they'll even stack with each other.

As a steamer for veggies, tamales, fish, or steamed buns the steamer works really well - it's big enough to do whole ears of corn (artfully arranged), and very easy to clean afterward. As a steamer for couscous or rice, however, it's not so great - the holes are too big to hold small grains, and the bottoms don't make a perfect tight seal even on the Kitchenaid pots (the cost of being universal). If you only make steamed grains on rare and special occasions, a square of cheesecloth inside and a kitchen towel wrapped around outside will solve the leakage problem, but it would probably get tedious every week.

Unlike some other steamer inserts, this one doesn't have three or four bumps around the edge on the bottom to hold the bottom up off a surface, so you can't use this to drain salted eggplant or meat, and you can't set this aside with hot damp things in it and expect them to cool and drain. Kitchenaid is usually very good at design, so I'm not sure why they overlooked this basic.

The second one I got also had a "Made in China" sticker on the bottom, which was a disappointment.

I like multi function appliances but sometimes it's case of a jack of all trades master of none. But this machine is nifty - does the basic rice cooking, steams and is also a slow cooker. Very useful for the price (you can get it cheaper at Kitchen Universe by the way I wonder if they will print this now that I've written it)
The steamer basket is too shallow so you have to keep the things you are steaming to a minimum height otherwise it sticks to the lid. That's my only complaint so far

Buttons can feel a little cheap but they work great

I bought this at WS and paid $20 more than the price here. But it's really well made, cooks perfect rice, and steams vegetables. All this before I get home from work! I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a programmable rice cooker

Although this model is not fuzzy logic, it is a great working rice cooker. I am actually upgrading my rice cooker from this one to a fuzzy logic rice cooker, but this rice cooker has served me well for a year.

Great rice cooker. Recieved this as a Christmas present, was quite excited. I eat lots of rice so this makes doing so easy. I had built up a love/hate relationship with rice. As much as I loved to eat rice with most of my meals, I had grown to hate cooking it. Always afraid it would burn lest I check on and stir the stuff every few minutes and when using brown rice as I often do, it was quite often for 30 to 45 minutes having to run in to the kitchen every 5 minutes. Using the top tray to steam veggies is quite a good way at keeping the counter uncluttered, no pot with burned on rice to scrub and less mess. Now, what I dislike about it, only one thing. It boils over just about every time, so there is the boil over mess to contend with. Really, my only complaint, but kind of a big one to me. After having my Rice Cooker for a few months I have figured out the cure for the boil over mess. Leave the steamer atop the pot and you should be mess free. Even when not steaming beautiful Broccoli or scrumptious Squash, leave the steamer on. Easy fix!