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Microwaves particularly are popular targets for snobbish malignment. They're great at doing a lot of things, but many people refuse to use them for anything f

Microwaves particularly are popular targets for snobbish malignment. They're great at doing a lot of things, but many people refuse to use them for anything for the silliest reasons (muh radiation). Of course they're not good for everything, but nothing is good for everything.

iasay 4y ago
I had that argument with someone once and she cooked me a full roast dinner in a wok to prove me wrong.
- robonerd 4y ago
  Woks are very versatile, but even woks aren't the best tool for every job. You could probably bake a pie in a wok, but I think a pie tin would work better. No tool being the best tool for every job is one of my core truths (and is perhaps its own sole exception.) I think it's true for any class of tool you can think of; kitchen tools, construction or manufacturing tools, software, even ideologies (which are tools for making sense of the world.) Some tools are more versatile than others, and some are basically worthless even for their intended use. But even a tool that could be used for virtually anything (in that tool's natural domain) will never be the best tool for all of those things. I could bake a pie in a wok or make mashed potatoes with a knife; those are very versatile tools. But there are better tools for both, like pie tins and potato mashers.
  - iasay 4y ago
    Agreed. I hold oscilloscopes and santoku knives with the same regard :)
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  Get this, I had a foods teacher in high school whose whole lesson plan (And decorations in the class) were a time machine back into the 1980s. She taught us how to cook an entire beef roast in the microwave. For what it's worth, this is actually pretty popular in Japan where they've got much more limited kitchen space and often the only cooking appliance available to people is a microwave. It requires a lot more basting and probably a larger amount of electricity compared to what you'd be doing in a conventional oven (especially if you've got a gas oven in terms of energy costs). It's like 40 mins to do though and it turns out... not bad, though I would absolutely prefer a proper convection oven to better results at around the same amount of time.
prpl 4y ago
The microwaves Starbucks used are really good. The average home microwave is great at steaming things in a closed or mostly closed container and mediocre at best at other tasks
- nikau 4y ago
  I find inverter microwaves are much better at reheating - you can set it to say 30% power which lets the heat conduct through the food better whereas older microwaves would blast at full power 30% of the time resulting in the usual inconsistent heating where one part is overcooked and the other part cold. Of course lower power means it takes longer, but its still much more convenient to put something in a microwave vs getting a pot out.

iasay 4y ago

I had that argument with someone once and she cooked me a full roast dinner in a wok to prove me wrong.

robonerd 4y ago
Woks are very versatile, but even woks aren't the best tool for every job. You could probably bake a pie in a wok, but I think a pie tin would work better. No tool being the best tool for every job is one of my core truths (and is perhaps its own sole exception.) I think it's true for any class of tool you can think of; kitchen tools, construction or manufacturing tools, software, even ideologies (which are tools for making sense of the world.) Some tools are more versatile than others, and some are basically worthless even for their intended use. But even a tool that could be used for virtually anything (in that tool's natural domain) will never be the best tool for all of those things. I could bake a pie in a wok or make mashed potatoes with a knife; those are very versatile tools. But there are better tools for both, like pie tins and potato mashers.
- iasay 4y ago
  Agreed. I hold oscilloscopes and santoku knives with the same regard :)
jamal-kumar 4y ago
Get this, I had a foods teacher in high school whose whole lesson plan (And decorations in the class) were a time machine back into the 1980s. She taught us how to cook an entire beef roast in the microwave. For what it's worth, this is actually pretty popular in Japan where they've got much more limited kitchen space and often the only cooking appliance available to people is a microwave. It requires a lot more basting and probably a larger amount of electricity compared to what you'd be doing in a conventional oven (especially if you've got a gas oven in terms of energy costs). It's like 40 mins to do though and it turns out... not bad, though I would absolutely prefer a proper convection oven to better results at around the same amount of time.

prpl 4y ago

The microwaves Starbucks used are really good. The average home microwave is great at steaming things in a closed or mostly closed container and mediocre at best at other tasks

nikau 4y ago
I find inverter microwaves are much better at reheating - you can set it to say 30% power which lets the heat conduct through the food better whereas older microwaves would blast at full power 30% of the time resulting in the usual inconsistent heating where one part is overcooked and the other part cold. Of course lower power means it takes longer, but its still much more convenient to put something in a microwave vs getting a pot out.