5 ms·

There was a lot of hubris around microwaves. I remember a lot of images of full chickens being roasted in them. I've never once seen that "in the wild" as it we

There was a lot of hubris around microwaves. I remember a lot of images of full chickens being roasted in them. I've never once seen that "in the wild" as it were. They are good for reheating something that was produced earlier. Hey the metaphor is even better than I thought!

momoschili 11mo ago
they did invent the combi oven, which while not a microwave is capable of most of its duties along with roasting a chicken :)
red75prime 11mo ago
Then you don't know about RLVR.
adrian_b 11mo ago
There are many years since I have switched to cooking only with microwaves, due to minimum wasted time and perfect reproducibility. And I normally eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients. Attempting to roast a full chicken or turkey is not the correct way to use microwaves. You must first remove the bones from the bird, then cut the meat into bite-sized chunks. After using a boning knife for the former operation, I prefer to do the latter operation with some good Japanese kitchen scissors, as it is simpler and faster than with a knife. If you buy turkey/chicken breasts or thighs without bones, then you have to do only the latter operation and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Then you can roast the meat pieces in a closed glass vessel, without adding anything to the meat, except salt and spices (i.e. no added water or oil). The microwave oven must be set to a relatively low power and long time, e.g. for turkey meat to 30 minutes @ 440 W and for chicken to less time than that, e.g. 20 to 25 minutes. The exact values depend on the oven and on the amount of cooked meat, but once determined by experiment, they remain valid forever. The meat cooked like this is practically identical to meat cooked on a covered grill (the kind with indirect heating, through hot air), but it is done faster and without needing any supervision. In my opinion this results in the tastiest meat in comparison with any other cooking method. However, I do not care about a roasted crust on the meat, which is also unhealthy, so I do not use the infrared lamp that the microwave oven has for making such a crust. Vegetable garnishes, e.g. potatoes, must be cooked at microwaves separate from the meat, as they typically need much less time than meat, usually less than 10 minutes (but higher power). Everything must be mixed into the final dish after cooking, including things like added oil, which should better not be heated at great temperatures. Even without the constraints of a microwave oven, preparing meat like this makes much more sense than cooking whole birds or fish or whatever. Removing all the bones and any other inedible parts and also cutting the meat into bite-sized pieces before cooking wastes much less time than when everybody must repeat all these operations every time during eating, so I consider that serving whole animals at a meal is just stupid, even if they may look appetizing for some people.
- LtWorf 11mo ago
  > There are many years since I have switched to cooking only with microwaves, due to minimum wasted time and perfect reproducibility. And I normally eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients. Some of us also like the food tasting nice besides the reproducibility of the results.
  - adrian_b 11mo ago
    Like I have said, meat prepared in this way is the tastiest that I have ever eaten, except if you are one of those who like real meat less than the burned crust of meat. Even for the burned-crust lovers, many microwave ovens have lamps for this purpose, but I cannot say whether the lamps are good at making tasty burned crusts, because I have never used them, since I like more to eat meat than to eat burned crusts. The good taste of meat prepared in this way is not surprising, because the meat is heated very uniformly and the flavor of the meat is not leached away by added water or oil, but it is concentrated due to the loss of water from the meat, so the taste is very similar to that of meat well cooked on a grill, neither burned nor under-cooked, and also without adding anything but salt and spices.
    - LtWorf 11mo ago
      > tastiest that I have ever eaten Let me strongly doubt that. > the meat is heated very uniformly Are you sure you are using a microwave oven at all?
    - franktankbank 11mo ago
      This convo is hilarious, you rock. I'm not surprised someone was open minded enough to master the art of cooking with a microwave. Also there are different type of fast cooking apparatus that are usually reserved for restaurants but I could imagine they might be up your alley. (I can't right now recall the name of such a device but its similar in function to microwave maybe it is a microwave at its heart?)
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
butlike 11mo ago
As I understood it, if you used the esoteric functions of the microwave, you COULD cook food like it was cooked on a range, but it required constant babysitting of the microwave and reinput of timers and cook power levels.

momoschili 11mo ago

they did invent the combi oven, which while not a microwave is capable of most of its duties along with roasting a chicken :)

red75prime 11mo ago

Then you don't know about RLVR.

adrian_b 11mo ago

There are many years since I have switched to cooking only with microwaves, due to minimum wasted time and perfect reproducibility. And I normally eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients. Attempting to roast a full chicken or turkey is not the correct way to use microwaves. You must first remove the bones from the bird, then cut the meat into bite-sized chunks. After using a boning knife for the former operation, I prefer to do the latter operation with some good Japanese kitchen scissors, as it is simpler and faster than with a knife. If you buy turkey/chicken breasts or thighs without bones, then you have to do only the latter operation and cut them into bite-sized pieces. Then you can roast the meat pieces in a closed glass vessel, without adding anything to the meat, except salt and spices (i.e. no added water or oil). The microwave oven must be set to a relatively low power and long time, e.g. for turkey meat to 30 minutes @ 440 W and for chicken to less time than that, e.g. 20 to 25 minutes. The exact values depend on the oven and on the amount of cooked meat, but once determined by experiment, they remain valid forever. The meat cooked like this is practically identical to meat cooked on a covered grill (the kind with indirect heating, through hot air), but it is done faster and without needing any supervision. In my opinion this results in the tastiest meat in comparison with any other cooking method. However, I do not care about a roasted crust on the meat, which is also unhealthy, so I do not use the infrared lamp that the microwave oven has for making such a crust. Vegetable garnishes, e.g. potatoes, must be cooked at microwaves separate from the meat, as they typically need much less time than meat, usually less than 10 minutes (but higher power). Everything must be mixed into the final dish after cooking, including things like added oil, which should better not be heated at great temperatures. Even without the constraints of a microwave oven, preparing meat like this makes much more sense than cooking whole birds or fish or whatever. Removing all the bones and any other inedible parts and also cutting the meat into bite-sized pieces before cooking wastes much less time than when everybody must repeat all these operations every time during eating, so I consider that serving whole animals at a meal is just stupid, even if they may look appetizing for some people.

LtWorf 11mo ago
> There are many years since I have switched to cooking only with microwaves, due to minimum wasted time and perfect reproducibility. And I normally eat only food that I cook myself from raw ingredients. Some of us also like the food tasting nice besides the reproducibility of the results.
- adrian_b 11mo ago
  Like I have said, meat prepared in this way is the tastiest that I have ever eaten, except if you are one of those who like real meat less than the burned crust of meat. Even for the burned-crust lovers, many microwave ovens have lamps for this purpose, but I cannot say whether the lamps are good at making tasty burned crusts, because I have never used them, since I like more to eat meat than to eat burned crusts. The good taste of meat prepared in this way is not surprising, because the meat is heated very uniformly and the flavor of the meat is not leached away by added water or oil, but it is concentrated due to the loss of water from the meat, so the taste is very similar to that of meat well cooked on a grill, neither burned nor under-cooked, and also without adding anything but salt and spices.
  - LtWorf 11mo ago
    > tastiest that I have ever eaten Let me strongly doubt that. > the meat is heated very uniformly Are you sure you are using a microwave oven at all?
  - franktankbank 11mo ago
    This convo is hilarious, you rock. I'm not surprised someone was open minded enough to master the art of cooking with a microwave. Also there are different type of fast cooking apparatus that are usually reserved for restaurants but I could imagine they might be up your alley. (I can't right now recall the name of such a device but its similar in function to microwave maybe it is a microwave at its heart?)
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]

butlike 11mo ago

As I understood it, if you used the esoteric functions of the microwave, you COULD cook food like it was cooked on a range, but it required constant babysitting of the microwave and reinput of timers and cook power levels.