Making the most of microwave cooking techniques

There's no question that the microwave oven is here to stay. The microwave is probably one of the most-used kitchen appliances in the modern kitchen. However, while we tend to use it almost universally to prepare a dish in a hurry, it does have certain limitations. Here we offer some microwave tips that allow you to make the most of your microwave oven. The novice cook may want to use the 'nuker' for just about everything in their cooking repertoire, but there are some cooking tasks that the nuker just doesn't do well. You need to know which it does really well and those which are better done with another appliance. Let's take a look.

The ingredients and texture of the food you're cooking are paramount to a successful outcome. Among meats, chicken and fish are perfect candidates for microwave cooking, while beef, pork and shellfish don't fare well in our beloved kitchen gadget. The microwave is great for defrosting any type of meat, with the exception of shellfish, which should be defrosted in the frig.

Almost any type of produce adapts well to microwave cooking techniques. You can cook a large baked potato in the microwave in just 8-10 minutes, compared to 45-60 minutes in the oven. While the texture of a 'nuked' potato is somewhat different than an oven cooked potato, the resulting taste becomes a matter of preference, not quality.

As for veggies that you might normally cook on the stove top or in a steamer basket, the microwave provides a quick and delicious result which retains the nutrients through a quicker cooking process, using little water, by which those valuable nutrients might be lost in the conventional cooking process. Steaming veggies in the microwave is a healthy way to serve those 5-9 servings, but there are cooking situations which demand a little more care. You can saute onions with the microwave cooking technique, but you can only caramelize the onions in a frying pan.

Melting butter or creating a broth with bouillon cubes is a quick and economical alternative to the stove top method. On the other hand, cheese becomes tough in the microwave cooking method and is best done on the stove top.

Eggs don't do well in the microwave. The microwave cooking of an egg is a delicate process. Egg proteins become tough, such that you'll wish you'd just broken the egg in the frying pan! You're certainly better off taking the few minutes required with a frying pan to fry your egg.

One of the oddities of microwave cooking is that thick foods, such as soups or stews, take a long time to heat, yet don't retain the heat you enjoy while eating. This is just one of the limitations of microwave cooking.

Although some microwave cooking experts laud the abilities of the microwave in terms of breads and baking, this microwave technique is not for the faint of heart. Hey, what can we expect of one kitchen gadget? You can cook an entire menu of fish or chicken, potatoes and fresh veggies to perfection, all in the 'nuker'. So long as you choose the right foods, microwave cooking makes meal preparation a breeze!