Life Hackery

The microwave oven is one of the most convenient kitchen tools ever invented. Microwave ovens make cooking and reheating foods quick, easy, and simple. Whether it’s leftover food from a weekend dinner, a batch of popcorn, or a healthy snack, microwave ovens do away with the sweat and hassle of conventional stove-top cooking.

While microwave cooking is supposed to be a convenient alternative to stove-top cooking, most people end up with undercooked or overcooked food from the microwave. Rubbery chicken breasts, cold donuts with really hot jelly, and odd-tasting casseroles all make for a bad day at the dining table. Instead of being a convenient cooking method, many people would only use the microwave to cook popcorn or thaw frozen food.

Your microwave does not have to be an expensive appliance with very limited uses. With a few simple tricks, your microwave oven can be one of the most useful tools you’ll ever use in the kitchen. Here are some hints and tips you can use to maximize your microwave oven.

1. Add Moisture To Your Food

Microwave cooking works by exciting the water molecules found in food. All food items contain moisture. With microwave heat, the water molecules inside food move quicker, and evaporate at a faster rate than conventional flame. Evaporation makes steam, which then passes through the pores of your food. With enough heat and moisture, superheated water vapor particles pack enough heat to cook your food through.

If your food too dry and has not enough moisture in it, it will not cook thoroughly in your microwave oven. Foodstuffs that are too dry will end up undercooked. Here are some ways you can try to add the necessary moisture to your food:

• Water. Plain old water works very well for clear soups. If you don’t want to risk dry foods getting soggy (especially if you cook leftover chicken or roasts), you can place the plate on top of a shallow bowl or plate filled with water.
• Broth or stock. If you’re reheating or cooking a stew or a casserole, a small amount of broth or stock can help enhance the flavor of the food, and provide the added moisture needed to cook the ingredients through.
• Sauce. For pasta dishes reheated in the microwave, add a few more spoonfuls of sauce. It’s better to use a runnier water- or wine-based sauce than cream sauce because the water content in the sauce would evaporate faster.

2. Spread the Food Around

If you cook or reheat your food while it’s clumped or packed tightly together, the microwave rays will have a smaller surface area to penetrate. To make the most out of the microwave oven’s heating and cooking capabilities, spread the food around. You may need to cut or carve foods you place inside the microwave to expand the surface area. If you expose more surfaces to the microwaves, then the food will cook faster and more thoroughly.

If you don’t like the idea of cutting or carving food, you can pierce a few holes to allow some of the superheated steam to escape. Holes and punctures are especially useful if you’re cooking foods with skin on them, like tomatoes, hot dogs, and sausages.

3. Keep the Oven Walls Clean

The inside walls of your microwave oven are covered with a special reflective coating that improves the circulation of microwaves all throughout the appliance. The coating may not look special or that you may mistake it for white paint, but the white coating reflects the microwaves and direct the rays to the food.

Oil, grease, condensation, and food particles can prevent the oven walls from properly reflecting the microwaves to your food. It’s very important for you to keep the walls of your microwave free from dirt and grease.

To clean your microwave oven’s interior walls, you need the following tools and materials:

• Food-grade cleaning spray or vegetable spray
• Warm soapy water
• Cold water
• Clean rags, soft cotton cloths
• Paper towels

Follow these steps to keep your microwave oven walls clean and efficient at reflecting microwave rays:

1. Wipe the interior of the microwave with paper towels.
2. Spray the walls with food-grade cleaning spray or vegetable spray. Make sure to get at the corners and the edges of the interior. Let the sprayed surface stand for at least 15 minutes.
3. With a clean rag, wipe the walls of the microwave with warm soapy water. Do not use a scouring pad or steel wool, and make sure that water does not seep into the vents on the microwave walls.
4. Rinse the walls of the microwave with cold water, and pat the appliance dry with paper towels or a clean rag.

4. Cook at a Lower Heat for a Longer Time

It may seem a good idea to use the highest temperature setting to cook your food, but you’ll only end up with overcooked and rubbery stuff you wouldn’t eat. Unless you’re in a real hurry and you can’t afford the extra two minutes it takes to thoroughly cook your food at a lower heat, then you’re better off taking the time to cook your food thoroughly and completely inside the microwave.

Most microwave ovens have charts or tables that indicate the ideal heating and cooking temperature for different kinds of food. You could follow these temperature settings, or you can reduce the temperature setting but expand the time needed to cook the food. An extra 45 seconds on a lower temperature setting should be enough to heat your food through without overcooking it.

5. Let the Food Rest

The texture and temperature of the food can drastically change if you take it out of the microwave immediately. When the microwave oven finishes cooking or reheating your food, the air inside the appliance is warmer than the air outside it. Some trace amounts of microwave radiation still do the job of exciting the water molecules inside your food.

Like with an ordinary oven, you should allow your food to rest a bit inside the microwave to retain its juices, and to allow the steam to settle back into the food. When you rest the food, the natural juices and moisture would make your food more flavorful, moist, and succulent.

Microwave ovens are not just for popcorn and TV dinners anymore. Cooking with a microwave oven is fast, convenient, and easy. Now that you know how to maximize the use of your microwave, gourmet meals are just a few buttons away.