Creating New Kitchens

November 6, 2009

Choosing a microwave oven

Filed under: Appliances — morris @ 12:04 pm

Microwave ovens have been a common appliance in the kitchen for many years since the first home model was released in 1947. Whilst microwave ovens are not typical cookers they are still able to cook food to an extent by using microwave radiation to heat water molecules in the food. The cooking process is usually a quick one and so is ideal for people who do not have the time to cook a meal in the oven or on a stove.

You should try and buy reliable and well known brands such as sanyo microwave ovens Many microwaves are used daily to defrost food quickly too which is ideal for quickly defrosting meats and other frozen produce. When buying a new microwave oven there are many different models available and can be tough to find the right one for you. There are compact microwave ovens for small produce or smaller kitchens as well as larger models that can cope with much larger foods.

The larger models tend to have extra features which could appeal to you as they give you a wider range of cooking functions. One such added feature is a rotisserie function which is great for meats or foods that will need to be rotated, by rotating the food it helps ensure an even heating as many foods being cooked in a microwave need mixing or stirring mid way through to let all of the food get cooked.

Larger models are also able to handle higher wattage settings for cooking too, these models tend to have numerous “auto cook” settings that help cook food items like roasts effortlessly. Smaller models tend to be around the 700-800w mark where as larger models can cook items at 2000w.

The common complaint about microwaveable meals is that the food doesn’t get the attractive browning that a conventional oven can give foods, this can affect the flavour and without reactions like browning and caramelization micro waved food can be a bit lacklustre. There are now models that can eradicate this problem with an element in the microwave to almost grill your food slightly at the end of cooking.

Microwaves can be used to help speed up conventional cooking such as the aforementioned defrosting as well as melting chocolate, butter and even making popcorn.

Choosing a microwave requires you to consider what kind of food you will be cooking as well as any you would like to cook but your current equipment means you can’t. Microwave ovens work great as a food preparation tool for cooking using a traditional oven as well as being able to cook a wide range of foods by themselves.

Comments are closed.