What are the rules to observe when steaming food?

Things which require thorough cooking should be as near the steam as possible, whereas things which require less cooking can be further away from the steam. Your aim is to have everything cooked and ready to eat at the same time. You may have to cut up things to ensure that they do all cook in a similar time.

Generally (going from "closest to steam" to "furtherest away from steam") you have : All types of meat (they need a lot of cooking), rice or steamable pulses, root vegetables, other hard vegetables (e.g cauliflower, broccoli, red cabbage...) and soft leafy greens right at the top (spinach etc...).