The Microwave is the Rodney Dangerfield of Kitchen Appliances!

Part 2 in a series: The microwave oven needs some respect!!

Let’s admit it… Microwave ovens are weird… They heat up food but they don’t “cook” food like a “real” oven, do they?

For 99.99999999% of human history, food has been cooked using fire, or to be technically accurate, radiant heat. At first it was literally burning wood in a hearth, over which people would hang pots to cook, and on occasion, pieces of raw meat were skewered and cooked directly over an open flame. Fast forward about 50,000 years…

But then, in the 1940’s, a new kind of “heat” was discovered. A self-taught engineer, Percy Spencer, in 1945, was experimenting with RADAR, a newly discovered form of electromagnetic radiation that was used by the military to detect enemy aircraft in WWII. He noticed that while standing close to the Magnetron, the device that emitted the RADAR waves, (microwave radiation), it melted a candy bar in his pocket…

He began to experiment by aiming the magnetron beam at items like popcorn and eggs and realized that, up close, the magnetron was emitting energy that generated heat.

The microwave was born! By the 1960’s, microwave “ovens” appeared on the market and exploded in popularity in the 1970’s.

While the microwave was and still is a marvelous time-saver to quickly heat, reheat, or thaw the foods we previously had to place in a pot and heat on the stove, the downside is that microwave “heat” isn’t all that great to actually cook something other than steaming vegetables.

Because we are used to food being cooked with radiant heat, which creates browning, or the carmelization of sugars and proteins, which adds appealing and appetizing aroma and flavor to food, the popularity of using the Microwave to “cook” was limited to steaming vegetables, reheating cold pizza, warming your coffee or making popcorn.

Radiant Heat vs Microwave Heat

To be clear, there is no difference in the energy in microwaves as compared to the radiant heat of a gas stove. Fire, the heat generated by a gas burner, or the heat generated by an electric stove or toaster, is known as radiant heat. This energy is part of the same electromagnetic spectrum. The “heat” we perceive from microwaves and radiant heat is the result of molecules becoming “excited” which causes vibration which creates friction, the by-product of which, is what we perceive as heat.

Because microwave energy is fundamentally different, in the form of shorter wavelengths, the way it heats is also fundamentally different. Radiant heat will cook, or even burn whatever is physically closest to it. Microwaves do not work the same way. They penetrate the surface of materials but they can only “excite” molecules of water or fat.

Turn your Microwave into your own Sous Chef!

It turns out, the way microwaves “cook” can be a huge time-saver but can also serve as a helper to complete certain cooking techniques where no further browning is neither necessary nor desired. Look at the plate of chicken thighs below:

Would you believe it if you were told the chicken thighs above came out of the Microwave Oven? Well, they did! Were they coooked entirely in the Microwave Oven?

Well… Not exactly… But they were FINISHED in the Microwave!

The truth of course, is that these chicken thighs, (purchased from Scotts Valley Market!), were grilled on a Gas Grill for a total of ten minutes, enough time to get a tasty char on the outside as well as a nice Mahogany color overall, but then…

If you’re a gas-grill aficionado, you know two things:

Chicken, especially Chicken Thighs, can go from perfectly grilled, to burnt, bitter, blackened grease-fire Chicken in literally, a flash.
You never leave your gas grill unattended…

What was done in this instance was, as soon as the Chicken achieved the perfect outer-doneness and color, which took about ten minutes, they were placed on a microwave-safe plate and cooked in the microwave for approximately four minutes and then allowed to rest.

The result? Not only was the chicken perfectly cooked, it was MOISTER than if the chicken had been fully cooked on the grill! This technique not only saved time, it eliminated the possibility of a flare-up with ruined Chicken.

We did a side-by-side taste-test comparison of Chicken Thighs cooked this way and a few pieces that were fully cooked on the grill. No one could tell the difference except that some people thought the Microwave-finished pieces were moister!

We achieved similar results with Tri-Tip, Sirloin Tip and Pork Tenderloin!

There are other ways your Microwave can be your Sous Chef! For example, you can microwave Diced Yukon Gold, Red or Russet Potatoes to par-cook them. Microwaving them first achieves two things: It partially pre-cooks the potatoes, which saves time but more importantly and BETTER is that Microwaving the potatoes draws sugars near the cut surface out where they begin to crystallize. You can then take these par-cooked potatoes and fry them in just a few minutes. The net result is you’ll get much better and quicker browing due to the microwave “pre-cooking” the potatoes, you can use less oil because of the shorter cooking time!

Check out our earlier blog entry using this technique to cook flawless and magazine-quality hash-brown potatoes by microwaving them!