7 ms·

My journey to the microwave alternate timeline

385 points by jstanley 8mo ago

crtasm 8mo ago
In the 1990s, the first microwave our family owned came with a small cookbook and I made an edible cake.
- abound 8mo ago
  I don't know if this is common knowledge, but microwaves are great for "mug cakes" [1] (or brownies, or cobblers), where you throw the cake ingredients in a mug, mix 'em, and microwave it. Makes for a great quick dessert (for one) when you're feeling snackish. [1] Here's an example: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241038/microwave-chocolate-mug-cake/ https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241038/microwave-chocolate...
  - phyzome 8mo ago
    The downside is that mug cakes are one of the few things my dishwasher can't quite handle (yes, even with prewash and preheated water). That and certain kinds of very paste-y pesto.
    - xp84 8mo ago
      For sure - it basically just creates dried lava in the mug. Probably need to soak it for like a day. I wonder if a couple paper cups would be good, or if the heat that is absorbed and re-radiated by the ceramic mug is critical to baking it properly.
      - system2 8mo ago
        You described the Kodiak brand.
      - phyzome 8mo ago
        Yeah, next time I'm going to do an overnight soak and see what happens.
messe 8mo ago
Excellent article. "Tradwife futurism" is a brilliant term. I'm worried I'm going to burn a hole in my wallet searching for a pyroceram skillet that I'll end up using for a week and then forget about it.
- db48x 8mo ago
  I’m suddenly in desperate need of a pyroceram skillet too. I’d love to be able to make proper cheeseburgers with grilled onions one at a time without using a stove or grill. On the other hand my brother in law got himself one of those smokers that burns wood pellets. I could buy one of those and eat nothing but smoked pork shoulder for the rest of my life.
  - rescbr 8mo ago
    Yeah, I now need a pyroceram skillet too! But as the solo meat-eater human in my apartment, I ended up buying a gas-canister camping grill to barbecue steaks on my terrace on weekends and then I reheat the rare steaks through the week in the microwave. They get the Maillard reaction and flavor, they get to the correct doneness point when blasted with RF later on. Cats get happy with the barbecuing, I also grill mushrooms and tofu for my wife and it’s very easy to clean afterwards.
    - adrian_b 8mo ago
      I do not care much about the Maillard flavor, so even when I was using a gas grill I was using the kind with indirect heating, where the grill is enclosed in a box that has one opening on the bottom, where you put the flame. The opening is laterally from the grill, not under it, and it has a wall separating the grill from the flame. With such a grill, the meat is cooked only by the hot air that comes from the flame without contact with something at higher temperatures, so the meat is browned only moderately at most. Nowadays, I can cook meat in a microwave oven in a way that makes it pretty much equivalent with the meat cooked using that kind of grill with indirect heating. I cut the meat in bite-sized pieces and I put them in a glass vessel covered by a glass lid, without adding water or anything else, except salt and seasonings spread on the meat. Then I cook the meat in the microwave oven, using a low power, e.g. 400 W, and long times, e.g. 20 to 25 minutes for chicken meat and around 30 minutes for turkey meat. I consider that meat cooked in this way has an optimum taste, but of course preferences vary.
jonstewart 8mo ago
Using an ISI Whip and a microwave to make cake is a well-known molecular gastronomy technique. Here’s one that doesn’t require the ISI Whip: https://www.seriouseats.com/microwave-rocky-road-sponge-cakes-recipe https://www.seriouseats.com/microwave-rocky-road-sponge-cake...
parpfish 8mo ago
> It’s about staring blankly at the buzzing white box, waiting for the four dreadful beeps that give you permission to eat. I thought it was near universal that everybody staring at the microwave was engaged in a game of chicken where you try to open the door as close to zero as possible while preventing the beeps. The beeps must not sound. I have no idea why it’s important to prevent the beeps, but it feels like a deep primal compulsion. Our ancestors must have learned that the beeps attracted sabretooth tigers or something
- Groxx 8mo ago
  Those extremely rare moments when you open the door literally on zero, with no sound, and the display showing 0s, are like half of the reason I use a microwave. Man vs machine at its most visceral, it makes me feel alive
  - parpfish 8mo ago
    The only thing that comes close is trying to stop the fuel pump on a nice round dollar amount.
    - nakedneuron 8mo ago
      Supermarket checkout with a round amount feels like winning some lottery, admittedly.
      - SpaceNoodled 8mo ago
        You'd think that it would happen around 1% of the time, but it doesn't seem to.
        randallsquared 8mo ago
        Prices aren't random, after all.
        8mo ago
Animats 8mo ago
Restaurants are doing more of this than most people think. Here's an article from the head chef from a commercial microwave oven company, on how to get more done faster.[1] Commercial microwave ovens have about 2KW-3KW of power, and some of them have true variable power, not the on/off thing most home microwave ovens use. "I’ve shown teams how to make mug cakes, molten chocolate brownies, and steamed puddings with just a microwave. The reactions are always the same: "I had no idea a microwave could do that.”" [1] https://totalfood.com/revolutionizing-microwave-cooking-commercial-kitchen/ https://totalfood.com/revolutionizing-microwave-cooking-comm...
ggm 8mo ago
In 1986 I briefly lived in a squat in North London, and the gas had been disconnected. We cooked everything in the Microwave, and we ate nutritious and completely unexpected (to me) normal meals, like Lasagne made with dried pasta, which uses cottage cheese to boost the moisture content so the sheets of Pasta soften. I appreciate at this point some people are saying "normal??" but truly, compared to the alternatives, using a more liquid cheese to make a meal which conforms in all other respects to your expectations, was huge. (gas reconnection was hard. Electricity, for reasons I never entirely understood, was easy to get reconnected to squats, at the time) My co-occupants had a lot more experience than I of this life on the edge. I learned a lot.
- mgaunard 8mo ago
  Most convection ovens are electric, not sure why you needed the gas...
  - ggm 8mo ago
    In 1985, a microwave was affordable and portable, if you had to do a rapid flit. If a house was set up for gas, then the stove (which typically was left in a house) was gas. If you were illegally occupying a house scheduled to be demolished, with only electricity and a judges order to quit over your head, what would you do? Go and buy a full oven or cook in a microwave?
    - mgaunard 8mo ago
      I wouldn't be squatting in the first place, and I personally always invested in improving whatever place I was living in even if just renting. So it's difficult for me to relate to those issues.
bronlund 8mo ago
Does anyone knows if using microwaves might possibly affect the nutritional value of the food? Or if radiation can leak and act upon your body if you stand very close to it. Heated plastic doesn’t sound too healthy either. And why do we never see commercials about microwaves? I know nothing about these things, but I still only use it to heat my cold cup of coffee - and I’m standing way back while I do :) I even own a pyroceram skillet.
- gucci-on-fleek 8mo ago
  > Does anyone knows if using microwaves might possibly affect the nutritional value of the food? Cooking in general affects the nutritional value of food—some nutrients are easier to absorb when cooked, so cooking effectively increases their amount, while other nutrients are destroyed [0] [1]. But given that you're probably cooking your food anyways, there's nothing specific to microwaves here. Microwaves might actually be slightly better than other cooking methods here, since they produce a lower heat that's less likely to destroy nutrients, but the cooking method has such a minor effect that I wouldn't really worry about it either way. > Or if radiation can leak and affect you body if you stand very close to it while it’s running. Microwaves are classified as non-ionizing radiation [2], so their main effect is just heating things up. So if you're standing near a microwave and your body starts heating up, then something bad is happening; otherwise, you're probably fine. The only health risk from microwaves (aside from a hypothetical accident involving someone being cooked inside one like a rotisserie chicken) is cataracts [3]. But this usually only affects radio technicians, who put their heads beside much bigger and much more powerful microwave emitters than a domestic microwave oven. And even cataracts are only due to the heating effect. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Effects_on_nutritional_content_of_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Effects_on_nutritional... [1]: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooking-nutrient-content https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooking-nutrient-conten... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract#Radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract#Radiation
  - bronlund 8mo ago
    Thanks.
nandomrumber 8mo ago
I discovered a (lame) party trick some microwave ovens are capable of. Many microwaves will let you set the power to 0% by pressing the power button then 0 or 00. You can then put a cup of hot water from a kettle or the hot water tap in the microwave on 0% power for two minutes and it will come out colder. Bonus points if you have a thermometer at hand.
- schiffern 8mo ago
  TIL microwaves can double as a Blow Air Across It machine. If one person in the house can't tolerate very hot foods, it could be useful for eg cooling off grandma's bowl of soup so she doesn't need to wait.
- tokenless 8mo ago
  Kettle doesn't have 90C tea settings? No problem just boil at 100C, then pop in the microwave for 2 minutes at 0 megawatts. It is even faster if you live at altitude!
- pjc50 8mo ago
  Clearly you need one of the special commercial microwaves which has a -800W setting, to suck the heat out at a much higher rate.
  - nandomrumber 8mo ago
    I assume you’re familiar with dark theory? Light builds doing emit light, they suck dark - https://ultimatecampresource.com/campfire-stories/funny-campfire-stories/the-dark-sucker-theory/ https://ultimatecampresource.com/campfire-stories/funny-camp...
- dghf 8mo ago
  Colder than if you'd just left it on the table for two minutes?
  - nandomrumber 8mo ago
    Well, it’s more nuanced than that. The microwave does have a van in it, so potentially yes.
niemandhier 8mo ago
My pet theory is that, humans have an inherent desire to spent a certain amount of time dealing with food. If our lives are to efficient, say because we do not have to butcher a pig and cure it’s meat to get ham, we start to become obsessed with all kind of strange diets from cocovorism to paleo.
iberator 8mo ago
Microwaves were invented to reanimate hamsters from hibernation. No joke.
schiffern 8mo ago
I feel like 80% of the microwave's downfall was adopting VCR-like push button interfaces. The two dial microwave was peak UX. Quick, painless, no wondering what sequence to press on a strange 'wave, zero time delay between input and cooking, and easy use of the (essential) power function. It even lets you change time or power mid-cook. For maximum laziness it's possible to leave the door cracked with time on the dial, throw in the food, and adjust the dial while it's already on (slightly reducing the wait before eating). Using the microwave becomes forgiving instead of foreboding, because it's so easy to change your mind. The only downside is that it's slightly less precise, but getting the exact time down to the second is probably less important than you think. It's also a mechanical part to fail, but I've had microwaves die because the push buttons failed too, whereas my dial unit is still going strong. YMMV
- danw1979 8mo ago
  We are repeating this same UX mistake with induction hobs now.
  - schiffern 8mo ago
    I noticed, it's an unfortunate regression. What's amazing is how the vibe of using the microwave completely changed. Before it was: "Okay, how much time?? I've gotta get this right, I only get one shot. Think!!" to: "Probably 2 minutes." moves knob, cooking starts "Eh, maybe 90 seconds actually." moves knob again That alone probably reduces the error rate, and it certainly reduces annoyance. With the new stoves, I've noticed people are starting to dread using their stove the same way they dread the microwave. Hopefully we can fix both.
  - IshKebab 8mo ago
    At least there's a good reason there - they're easier to clean. That's not much of a concern with microwave controls. But I disagree with the idea that we don't need precise times on a microwave. The article / book disagrees with that, and the think I most regularly microwave (milk for my kids) needs 1 minute 50 seconds. 2 minutes and they'll reliably complain it's too hot. The real problem with microwave UX is that the interfaces are often simply bad. People think the power/time dial interface is good but that's because it's difficult to mess it up (though they usually manage anyway by having them go up to 30 minutes or whatever). It's really easy to mess up a button interface but you can also do it well. My microwave is close to doing it really well. You press a high/med/low button, then 1s/10s/1m/10m buttons to the desired time, then start. The only things they got wrong are that it requires pressing the power when 99% of the time you want high, and you could probably get a more useful distribution of time increments (I'm literally never going to use the 10m button). But apart from that it's nicer than dials, which are often very cheap and imprecise.
fzaninotto 8mo ago
Thanks Hacker News for surfacing such jewels, and kudos to the author for such a great piece. Although I will never use anything of what I learned from this article, I feel a better person since I’ve read it. In one of the alternate universe I like to imagine, AI slop doesn’t exist and the Internet is filled with gorgeous pieces like this one.
kleiba 8mo ago
> The actual recipe section starts with the recipe for a bowl of cereal, which I am 70% sure is a joke For years, I would get up insanely early and be the first in the office, with no-one around other than the cleaners. My breakfast every day would be microwave-cooked oats - but it wasn't quite as easy as the recipe from the book makes it out to be, mostly because of the milk. Unlike water, when you heat up milk to a high temperature in the microwave, it behaves just like it does on the stove top: it wants to crawl out of the container and nicely spread itself everywhere. So, I developed sort of a technique that consisted of short bursts of microwaving at full blast, then stopping and stirring, and back in with bowl. I repeated that a few times, but after I had the technique down, it didn't require much attention any more, it worked quite reliably. The oats got cooked nicely, and thanks to the pectin of an apple that I also added in, it also thickened. (And in case you wonder, the apple's acidity does sometimes split the milk somewhat, but in most cases it doesn't.) However, there's definitely a difference in smoothness between microwaved oat meal and one that's made slowly on the stove top - the latter being much nicer in texture. But it was a quick breakfast that I really enjoyed (with a dash of cinnamon) at my desk every morning while I was going through my email from the night before.
- urikaduri 8mo ago
  Another easy microwave win is polenta, I sometimes make a polenta-ish porridge with masa flour because its more nutritious and the taste is nice.
  - urikaduri 8mo ago
    My technique for oatmeal is to warm 1 cup of milk in the microwave with the oatmeal, and boil a cup of water in the kettle. Then add the water to the porridge and mix.
  - adrian_b 8mo ago
    Indeed, making polenta and any other kinds of porridge is so much better than with the traditional means. When polenta is made traditionally, you have to stir it continuously, which keeps you occupied and can even be physically demanding. In a microwave oven, you can make perfectly homogeneous polenta without any mixing (except for a few seconds, before putting the vessel in the microwave oven). You can also bake bread in a microwave oven, and it grows tremendously with yeast or with baking powder. Even without a leavening agent, unleavened bread still grows well enough in a microwave oven, if you use excess water for the dough. Nowadays, my standard breakfast consists of a polenta made in a microwave oven, which contains not only maize meal, but also sunflower seeds and whey or milk protein concentrate, so that it has an adequate balance of starch and protein, while also providing my daily intake of essential linoleic acid and vitamin E. After this breakfast, I am not hungry again until late in the evening, when I have my main meal.
mrighele 8mo ago
The microwave has two big related issues (both mentioned in the article). The first is that it is not easy to make a mental model of how it works. The second is that since it takes little too cook the food, it is unforgiving and you have to be very careful with both timings and amounts. This makes it hard to learn how to properly use it just by trial and error. Also since now we have inductive stoves there is even less reason to use it.
- xattt 8mo ago
  Microwave ovens have been a reliable way to heat milk without scalding at the bottom.
- nandomrumber 8mo ago
  Adjust the power setting. I’m surprised almost everyone I’ve shown this to in real life hadn’t known, and goes on to never use it. This was less of an issue when more microwaves had two knobs rather than buttons only.
  - codeulike 8mo ago
    But on most of them the power setting just changes the percentage of time the magentrotron is 'on', but while it is on, its full power. So something like 'low for 40s' becomes a game of russian roulette
    - nandomrumber 8mo ago
      Oh no! An imperfect tool!
tambre 8mo ago
I'm surprised no one has mentioned inverter microwaves. Unlike plain old regular microwaves where power settings just adjust the time that the magnetron is running at full blast the inverter ones can actually change the power of the magnetron. Makes it tons easier to cook food evenly and calmly. Never am I buying again one without. It's kinda hard to find them though. Most manufacturers hardly list this but Bosch seems to have inverters in most of their mid and higher-end ones. My favourite is the Bosch BFL634GB1. Bosch BFL7221B1 was a huge downgrade due to the shitty touch screen and wheel along with a multi-second boot time.
- bombela 8mo ago
  I want a variable power ("inverter") microwave with two rotary knob. One for power, and one for timing. I hate every microwave I have ever had the displeasure to operate during my lifetime, except the old stuff witn the teo mechanical knobs. With a rotary encoder we can get second precision and minute granularity at the same time. Is that time for a Kickstarter?
  - mietek 8mo ago
    Sign me up!
  - adrian_b 8mo ago
    I had until now (in Europe, for somewhat more than the last 2 decades) a couple of Panasonic microwave ovens. Both of them match your description. They had some other buttons, which I have never used. Besides the 2 rotary knobs, I use 3 buttons: start, stop and a button for chaining multiple time intervals, each with a different power level. I cook all the food that I eat in the microwave oven, from raw ingredients.
  - Gibbon1 8mo ago
    Breville BMO850BSS
- mahrain 8mo ago
  This explains a lot, American microwaves have these settings for different types of food etc, it seems most people throw something in and just 'nuke it'. European microwave ovens on the other hand, have a setting for different wattages (90W up to 720W 'Max' in my case), which, combined with instructions in the recipe or on the box, provide the right setting for this particular food.
tokenless 8mo ago
If you get a built in microwave get one that is also an oven. Great at Christmas time, you are ready with 2 real ovens!
mgaunard 8mo ago
I do not have a microwave, but I remember having one, and never managed to intuitively use it to iterate on my cooking. Meanwhile, throw stuff in the pan, move it around, adjust the temperature, add in some stuff as it goes, is a much more interactive type of cooking that is much more likely to take me where I want to go (tasty food).
- ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
  It depends what you're trying to make. There are two things I almost always cook from scratch in the microwave, and that's trifle sponge (because I don't care if the sponge cake is going to be a bit dry and heavy, because I'm about to break it all up, mix it with diced fruit, and pour some sherry and quite a lot of jelly over it) and onion paste for curry. If you want to make curry from scratch you can either do the whole thing in one pan and get "homestyle" curry - which is good - or you can make an onion paste by either cooking a very mildly spicy but ultimately rather bland onion soup for an hour to make the "base gravy", or by just chopping three or four onions and sticking them in the microwave on full blast for ten minutes before mooshing them with the hand blender. Then you just bloom your spices in a bit of oil, chuck in some garlic and ginger paste (literally about the same amount of peeled garlic cloves and peeled ginger root mooshed up with the blender in a little oil and water) and let it bubble a bit, chuck in whatever veg and meat you're adding, and then slowly start adding your onion gloop, and boom, restaurant-style curry. If you make the garlic and ginger paste in advance, and precook the meat a little (beef kind of wants to be stewed until it's tender, and then you can fire in the stock it's stewing in) then you can knock out an incredibly tasty curry in the same amount of time it takes to cook the rice. And that's how restaurants do it, because you're not going to wait two hours for a homestyle curry to cook off properly.
OisinMoran 8mo ago
No mention of the Miele Dialog which gets as close as I've seen (though not quite there) to my dream of crispy fried eggs with runny yolk in the microwave. Their big example is being able to cook a fish while it remains in a block of ice. Pretty damn cool! https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/we-tried-an-oven-that-cooks-by-listening-to-your-food-and-its-amazing-miele-dialog https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/we-tried-an-oven-tha...
VladVladikoff 8mo ago
https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/corningware-stovetop-pyroceram-set-4-pc-1425486p.html https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/corningware-stovetop-pyro... >Unfortunately, this product is discontinued :(
alnwlsn 8mo ago
For whatever reason, I have an 8" floppy disk with one of these microwave cookbooks on it. Mine seems to be (part of?) one called "The Guaranteed Goof-Proof Microwave Cookbook" by Margie "Microwhiz" Kreschollek. Sadly, I've never been able to read the book in the correct order as I don't know what system it came from - it's something that is single-sided, 77 tracks, FM (single density) encoded with 26 sectors/track, but the text is there in a hex editor. It makes it pretty obvious that it isn't a joke or trick; someone saw it fit to fill up a 250kB disk with this, so somebody must have thought it was a good idea. In an unrelated endeavour, my dad told me he once tried to cook an entire turkey in one of those huge 80's microwaves. He said it didn't turn out very good.
codeulike 8mo ago
This is fascinating because I remember this era when Microwave ovens were a new thing and my parents got one, along with a glossy cookbook with a roast chicken on the front. All of that 'roasting things in the microwave' gor quietly forgotten about in the late 80s, along with the idea that CDs were 'indestructible'. But somehow modern microwaves always have a button on the front with a picture of a roast chicken. Why are microwave UIs so delusional? Just need power %age and time. Microwaves are good for making porridge (oatmeal) though. And I've had some success with scrambled eggs, if you get the method right results are very consistent.
ufo 8mo ago
A microwave lifehack I recently learned: If you're gonna brown some onions, microwave them for a bit before tossing them into the pan. The first step of browning onions is just boiling away the water, which microwaves are great at. You may find that it begins to brown sooner this way.
MarkusWandel 8mo ago
More recent alternate universe is where everyone cooks everything in an Instant Pot, and even more recent is where everyone cooks everything in an air fryer. Every new cooking appliance is a revolution, until it isn't, and only a handful of real use cases for it remain.
OkayPhysicist 8mo ago
The number one feature of modern microwaves that I appreciate is the humidity sensor. Figure out if your microwave has one, and it opens up a whole world of better solutions. Know the popcorn button? Ever wondered why every popcorn manufacturer tells you not to use it, or, if you don't make a habit of taking orders from a paper bag, why it works on some microwaves, but fails miserably on others, either burning the popcorn to a crisp or, more often, leaving half the kernels unpopped? Humidity sensor. In microwaves with a humidity sensor, the microwave runs until the humidity stops rising, (which means the kernels stopped popping) then stops (well, actually mine sets ~30 second timer, then stops). This produces perfect popcorn every time. Doesn't matter the brand of popcorn, it just works. Unfortunately, because this feature was so great, it got imitated on every microwave, regardless of whether it has a humidity sensor or not. On those microwaves, it just sets a flat timer, which cannot adapt to variations in popcorn. Since popcorn manufacturers have no idea which camp your microwave falls into, and can't assume you have any idea either, they just tell people to neglect a fantastic feature.
- zakki 8mo ago
  Any recommended global brand with humidity sensor?
  - OkayPhysicist 8mo ago
    I have some Panasonic microwave that was in the apartment when I got it, and I know LG has it on at least some of their microwaves. Keyword to look for is something along the lines of "Sensor reheat" (which uses the same sensor for reheating food).
willlma 8mo ago
Surprised to see no mention of the Anyday: https://cookanyday.com/ https://cookanyday.com/ I'm partially living in this alternative timeline as an accomplished microwave chef thanks to this thing. I mostly use it to steam veggies. Didn't think the Maillard reaction was possible in the microwave (and that's what I miss the most). The tin-oxide pans are fascinating, though pre-heating them doesn't seem terribly convenient now that we have induction stove-tops. Also, the number of paper towels used...

385 points by jstanley 8mo ago

crtasm 8mo ago

In the 1990s, the first microwave our family owned came with a small cookbook and I made an edible cake.

abound 8mo ago
I don't know if this is common knowledge, but microwaves are great for "mug cakes" [1] (or brownies, or cobblers), where you throw the cake ingredients in a mug, mix 'em, and microwave it. Makes for a great quick dessert (for one) when you're feeling snackish. [1] Here's an example: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241038/microwave-chocolate-mug-cake/ https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/241038/microwave-chocolate...
- phyzome 8mo ago
  The downside is that mug cakes are one of the few things my dishwasher can't quite handle (yes, even with prewash and preheated water). That and certain kinds of very paste-y pesto.
  - xp84 8mo ago
    For sure - it basically just creates dried lava in the mug. Probably need to soak it for like a day. I wonder if a couple paper cups would be good, or if the heat that is absorbed and re-radiated by the ceramic mug is critical to baking it properly.
    - system2 8mo ago
      You described the Kodiak brand.
    - phyzome 8mo ago
      Yeah, next time I'm going to do an overnight soak and see what happens.

messe 8mo ago

Excellent article. "Tradwife futurism" is a brilliant term. I'm worried I'm going to burn a hole in my wallet searching for a pyroceram skillet that I'll end up using for a week and then forget about it.

db48x 8mo ago
I’m suddenly in desperate need of a pyroceram skillet too. I’d love to be able to make proper cheeseburgers with grilled onions one at a time without using a stove or grill. On the other hand my brother in law got himself one of those smokers that burns wood pellets. I could buy one of those and eat nothing but smoked pork shoulder for the rest of my life.
- rescbr 8mo ago
  Yeah, I now need a pyroceram skillet too! But as the solo meat-eater human in my apartment, I ended up buying a gas-canister camping grill to barbecue steaks on my terrace on weekends and then I reheat the rare steaks through the week in the microwave. They get the Maillard reaction and flavor, they get to the correct doneness point when blasted with RF later on. Cats get happy with the barbecuing, I also grill mushrooms and tofu for my wife and it’s very easy to clean afterwards.
  - adrian_b 8mo ago
    I do not care much about the Maillard flavor, so even when I was using a gas grill I was using the kind with indirect heating, where the grill is enclosed in a box that has one opening on the bottom, where you put the flame. The opening is laterally from the grill, not under it, and it has a wall separating the grill from the flame. With such a grill, the meat is cooked only by the hot air that comes from the flame without contact with something at higher temperatures, so the meat is browned only moderately at most. Nowadays, I can cook meat in a microwave oven in a way that makes it pretty much equivalent with the meat cooked using that kind of grill with indirect heating. I cut the meat in bite-sized pieces and I put them in a glass vessel covered by a glass lid, without adding water or anything else, except salt and seasonings spread on the meat. Then I cook the meat in the microwave oven, using a low power, e.g. 400 W, and long times, e.g. 20 to 25 minutes for chicken meat and around 30 minutes for turkey meat. I consider that meat cooked in this way has an optimum taste, but of course preferences vary.

jonstewart 8mo ago

Using an ISI Whip and a microwave to make cake is a well-known molecular gastronomy technique. Here’s one that doesn’t require the ISI Whip: https://www.seriouseats.com/microwave-rocky-road-sponge-cakes-recipe https://www.seriouseats.com/microwave-rocky-road-sponge-cake...

parpfish 8mo ago

> It’s about staring blankly at the buzzing white box, waiting for the four dreadful beeps that give you permission to eat. I thought it was near universal that everybody staring at the microwave was engaged in a game of chicken where you try to open the door as close to zero as possible while preventing the beeps. The beeps must not sound. I have no idea why it’s important to prevent the beeps, but it feels like a deep primal compulsion. Our ancestors must have learned that the beeps attracted sabretooth tigers or something

Groxx 8mo ago
Those extremely rare moments when you open the door literally on zero, with no sound, and the display showing 0s, are like half of the reason I use a microwave. Man vs machine at its most visceral, it makes me feel alive
- parpfish 8mo ago
  The only thing that comes close is trying to stop the fuel pump on a nice round dollar amount.
  - nakedneuron 8mo ago
    Supermarket checkout with a round amount feels like winning some lottery, admittedly.
    - SpaceNoodled 8mo ago
      You'd think that it would happen around 1% of the time, but it doesn't seem to.
      - randallsquared 8mo ago
        Prices aren't random, after all.
        8mo ago

Animats 8mo ago

Restaurants are doing more of this than most people think. Here's an article from the head chef from a commercial microwave oven company, on how to get more done faster.[1] Commercial microwave ovens have about 2KW-3KW of power, and some of them have true variable power, not the on/off thing most home microwave ovens use. "I’ve shown teams how to make mug cakes, molten chocolate brownies, and steamed puddings with just a microwave. The reactions are always the same: "I had no idea a microwave could do that.”" [1] https://totalfood.com/revolutionizing-microwave-cooking-commercial-kitchen/ https://totalfood.com/revolutionizing-microwave-cooking-comm...

ggm 8mo ago

In 1986 I briefly lived in a squat in North London, and the gas had been disconnected. We cooked everything in the Microwave, and we ate nutritious and completely unexpected (to me) normal meals, like Lasagne made with dried pasta, which uses cottage cheese to boost the moisture content so the sheets of Pasta soften. I appreciate at this point some people are saying "normal??" but truly, compared to the alternatives, using a more liquid cheese to make a meal which conforms in all other respects to your expectations, was huge. (gas reconnection was hard. Electricity, for reasons I never entirely understood, was easy to get reconnected to squats, at the time) My co-occupants had a lot more experience than I of this life on the edge. I learned a lot.

mgaunard 8mo ago
Most convection ovens are electric, not sure why you needed the gas...
- ggm 8mo ago
  In 1985, a microwave was affordable and portable, if you had to do a rapid flit. If a house was set up for gas, then the stove (which typically was left in a house) was gas. If you were illegally occupying a house scheduled to be demolished, with only electricity and a judges order to quit over your head, what would you do? Go and buy a full oven or cook in a microwave?
  - mgaunard 8mo ago
    I wouldn't be squatting in the first place, and I personally always invested in improving whatever place I was living in even if just renting. So it's difficult for me to relate to those issues.

bronlund 8mo ago

Does anyone knows if using microwaves might possibly affect the nutritional value of the food? Or if radiation can leak and act upon your body if you stand very close to it. Heated plastic doesn’t sound too healthy either. And why do we never see commercials about microwaves? I know nothing about these things, but I still only use it to heat my cold cup of coffee - and I’m standing way back while I do :) I even own a pyroceram skillet.

gucci-on-fleek 8mo ago
> Does anyone knows if using microwaves might possibly affect the nutritional value of the food? Cooking in general affects the nutritional value of food—some nutrients are easier to absorb when cooked, so cooking effectively increases their amount, while other nutrients are destroyed [0] [1]. But given that you're probably cooking your food anyways, there's nothing specific to microwaves here. Microwaves might actually be slightly better than other cooking methods here, since they produce a lower heat that's less likely to destroy nutrients, but the cooking method has such a minor effect that I wouldn't really worry about it either way. > Or if radiation can leak and affect you body if you stand very close to it while it’s running. Microwaves are classified as non-ionizing radiation [2], so their main effect is just heating things up. So if you're standing near a microwave and your body starts heating up, then something bad is happening; otherwise, you're probably fine. The only health risk from microwaves (aside from a hypothetical accident involving someone being cooked inside one like a rotisserie chicken) is cataracts [3]. But this usually only affects radio technicians, who put their heads beside much bigger and much more powerful microwave emitters than a domestic microwave oven. And even cataracts are only due to the heating effect. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Effects_on_nutritional_content_of_food https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooking#Effects_on_nutritional... [1]: https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooking-nutrient-content https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/cooking-nutrient-conten... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-ionizing_radiation [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract#Radiation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract#Radiation
- bronlund 8mo ago
  Thanks.

nandomrumber 8mo ago

I discovered a (lame) party trick some microwave ovens are capable of. Many microwaves will let you set the power to 0% by pressing the power button then 0 or 00. You can then put a cup of hot water from a kettle or the hot water tap in the microwave on 0% power for two minutes and it will come out colder. Bonus points if you have a thermometer at hand.

schiffern 8mo ago
TIL microwaves can double as a Blow Air Across It machine. If one person in the house can't tolerate very hot foods, it could be useful for eg cooling off grandma's bowl of soup so she doesn't need to wait.
tokenless 8mo ago
Kettle doesn't have 90C tea settings? No problem just boil at 100C, then pop in the microwave for 2 minutes at 0 megawatts. It is even faster if you live at altitude!
pjc50 8mo ago
Clearly you need one of the special commercial microwaves which has a -800W setting, to suck the heat out at a much higher rate.
- nandomrumber 8mo ago
  I assume you’re familiar with dark theory? Light builds doing emit light, they suck dark - https://ultimatecampresource.com/campfire-stories/funny-campfire-stories/the-dark-sucker-theory/ https://ultimatecampresource.com/campfire-stories/funny-camp...
dghf 8mo ago
Colder than if you'd just left it on the table for two minutes?
- nandomrumber 8mo ago
  Well, it’s more nuanced than that. The microwave does have a van in it, so potentially yes.

niemandhier 8mo ago

My pet theory is that, humans have an inherent desire to spent a certain amount of time dealing with food. If our lives are to efficient, say because we do not have to butcher a pig and cure it’s meat to get ham, we start to become obsessed with all kind of strange diets from cocovorism to paleo.

iberator 8mo ago

Microwaves were invented to reanimate hamsters from hibernation. No joke.

schiffern 8mo ago

I feel like 80% of the microwave's downfall was adopting VCR-like push button interfaces. The two dial microwave was peak UX. Quick, painless, no wondering what sequence to press on a strange 'wave, zero time delay between input and cooking, and easy use of the (essential) power function. It even lets you change time or power mid-cook. For maximum laziness it's possible to leave the door cracked with time on the dial, throw in the food, and adjust the dial while it's already on (slightly reducing the wait before eating). Using the microwave becomes forgiving instead of foreboding, because it's so easy to change your mind. The only downside is that it's slightly less precise, but getting the exact time down to the second is probably less important than you think. It's also a mechanical part to fail, but I've had microwaves die because the push buttons failed too, whereas my dial unit is still going strong. YMMV

danw1979 8mo ago
We are repeating this same UX mistake with induction hobs now.
- schiffern 8mo ago
  I noticed, it's an unfortunate regression. What's amazing is how the vibe of using the microwave completely changed. Before it was: "Okay, how much time?? I've gotta get this right, I only get one shot. Think!!" to: "Probably 2 minutes." moves knob, cooking starts "Eh, maybe 90 seconds actually." moves knob again That alone probably reduces the error rate, and it certainly reduces annoyance. With the new stoves, I've noticed people are starting to dread using their stove the same way they dread the microwave. Hopefully we can fix both.
- IshKebab 8mo ago
  At least there's a good reason there - they're easier to clean. That's not much of a concern with microwave controls. But I disagree with the idea that we don't need precise times on a microwave. The article / book disagrees with that, and the think I most regularly microwave (milk for my kids) needs 1 minute 50 seconds. 2 minutes and they'll reliably complain it's too hot. The real problem with microwave UX is that the interfaces are often simply bad. People think the power/time dial interface is good but that's because it's difficult to mess it up (though they usually manage anyway by having them go up to 30 minutes or whatever). It's really easy to mess up a button interface but you can also do it well. My microwave is close to doing it really well. You press a high/med/low button, then 1s/10s/1m/10m buttons to the desired time, then start. The only things they got wrong are that it requires pressing the power when 99% of the time you want high, and you could probably get a more useful distribution of time increments (I'm literally never going to use the 10m button). But apart from that it's nicer than dials, which are often very cheap and imprecise.

fzaninotto 8mo ago

Thanks Hacker News for surfacing such jewels, and kudos to the author for such a great piece. Although I will never use anything of what I learned from this article, I feel a better person since I’ve read it. In one of the alternate universe I like to imagine, AI slop doesn’t exist and the Internet is filled with gorgeous pieces like this one.

kleiba 8mo ago

> The actual recipe section starts with the recipe for a bowl of cereal, which I am 70% sure is a joke For years, I would get up insanely early and be the first in the office, with no-one around other than the cleaners. My breakfast every day would be microwave-cooked oats - but it wasn't quite as easy as the recipe from the book makes it out to be, mostly because of the milk. Unlike water, when you heat up milk to a high temperature in the microwave, it behaves just like it does on the stove top: it wants to crawl out of the container and nicely spread itself everywhere. So, I developed sort of a technique that consisted of short bursts of microwaving at full blast, then stopping and stirring, and back in with bowl. I repeated that a few times, but after I had the technique down, it didn't require much attention any more, it worked quite reliably. The oats got cooked nicely, and thanks to the pectin of an apple that I also added in, it also thickened. (And in case you wonder, the apple's acidity does sometimes split the milk somewhat, but in most cases it doesn't.) However, there's definitely a difference in smoothness between microwaved oat meal and one that's made slowly on the stove top - the latter being much nicer in texture. But it was a quick breakfast that I really enjoyed (with a dash of cinnamon) at my desk every morning while I was going through my email from the night before.

urikaduri 8mo ago
Another easy microwave win is polenta, I sometimes make a polenta-ish porridge with masa flour because its more nutritious and the taste is nice.
- urikaduri 8mo ago
  My technique for oatmeal is to warm 1 cup of milk in the microwave with the oatmeal, and boil a cup of water in the kettle. Then add the water to the porridge and mix.
- adrian_b 8mo ago
  Indeed, making polenta and any other kinds of porridge is so much better than with the traditional means. When polenta is made traditionally, you have to stir it continuously, which keeps you occupied and can even be physically demanding. In a microwave oven, you can make perfectly homogeneous polenta without any mixing (except for a few seconds, before putting the vessel in the microwave oven). You can also bake bread in a microwave oven, and it grows tremendously with yeast or with baking powder. Even without a leavening agent, unleavened bread still grows well enough in a microwave oven, if you use excess water for the dough. Nowadays, my standard breakfast consists of a polenta made in a microwave oven, which contains not only maize meal, but also sunflower seeds and whey or milk protein concentrate, so that it has an adequate balance of starch and protein, while also providing my daily intake of essential linoleic acid and vitamin E. After this breakfast, I am not hungry again until late in the evening, when I have my main meal.

mrighele 8mo ago

The microwave has two big related issues (both mentioned in the article). The first is that it is not easy to make a mental model of how it works. The second is that since it takes little too cook the food, it is unforgiving and you have to be very careful with both timings and amounts. This makes it hard to learn how to properly use it just by trial and error. Also since now we have inductive stoves there is even less reason to use it.

xattt 8mo ago
Microwave ovens have been a reliable way to heat milk without scalding at the bottom.
nandomrumber 8mo ago
Adjust the power setting. I’m surprised almost everyone I’ve shown this to in real life hadn’t known, and goes on to never use it. This was less of an issue when more microwaves had two knobs rather than buttons only.
- codeulike 8mo ago
  But on most of them the power setting just changes the percentage of time the magentrotron is 'on', but while it is on, its full power. So something like 'low for 40s' becomes a game of russian roulette
  - nandomrumber 8mo ago
    Oh no! An imperfect tool!

tambre 8mo ago

I'm surprised no one has mentioned inverter microwaves. Unlike plain old regular microwaves where power settings just adjust the time that the magnetron is running at full blast the inverter ones can actually change the power of the magnetron. Makes it tons easier to cook food evenly and calmly. Never am I buying again one without. It's kinda hard to find them though. Most manufacturers hardly list this but Bosch seems to have inverters in most of their mid and higher-end ones. My favourite is the Bosch BFL634GB1. Bosch BFL7221B1 was a huge downgrade due to the shitty touch screen and wheel along with a multi-second boot time.

bombela 8mo ago
I want a variable power ("inverter") microwave with two rotary knob. One for power, and one for timing. I hate every microwave I have ever had the displeasure to operate during my lifetime, except the old stuff witn the teo mechanical knobs. With a rotary encoder we can get second precision and minute granularity at the same time. Is that time for a Kickstarter?
- mietek 8mo ago
  Sign me up!
- adrian_b 8mo ago
  I had until now (in Europe, for somewhat more than the last 2 decades) a couple of Panasonic microwave ovens. Both of them match your description. They had some other buttons, which I have never used. Besides the 2 rotary knobs, I use 3 buttons: start, stop and a button for chaining multiple time intervals, each with a different power level. I cook all the food that I eat in the microwave oven, from raw ingredients.
- Gibbon1 8mo ago
  Breville BMO850BSS
mahrain 8mo ago
This explains a lot, American microwaves have these settings for different types of food etc, it seems most people throw something in and just 'nuke it'. European microwave ovens on the other hand, have a setting for different wattages (90W up to 720W 'Max' in my case), which, combined with instructions in the recipe or on the box, provide the right setting for this particular food.

tokenless 8mo ago

If you get a built in microwave get one that is also an oven. Great at Christmas time, you are ready with 2 real ovens!

mgaunard 8mo ago

I do not have a microwave, but I remember having one, and never managed to intuitively use it to iterate on my cooking. Meanwhile, throw stuff in the pan, move it around, adjust the temperature, add in some stuff as it goes, is a much more interactive type of cooking that is much more likely to take me where I want to go (tasty food).

ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
It depends what you're trying to make. There are two things I almost always cook from scratch in the microwave, and that's trifle sponge (because I don't care if the sponge cake is going to be a bit dry and heavy, because I'm about to break it all up, mix it with diced fruit, and pour some sherry and quite a lot of jelly over it) and onion paste for curry. If you want to make curry from scratch you can either do the whole thing in one pan and get "homestyle" curry - which is good - or you can make an onion paste by either cooking a very mildly spicy but ultimately rather bland onion soup for an hour to make the "base gravy", or by just chopping three or four onions and sticking them in the microwave on full blast for ten minutes before mooshing them with the hand blender. Then you just bloom your spices in a bit of oil, chuck in some garlic and ginger paste (literally about the same amount of peeled garlic cloves and peeled ginger root mooshed up with the blender in a little oil and water) and let it bubble a bit, chuck in whatever veg and meat you're adding, and then slowly start adding your onion gloop, and boom, restaurant-style curry. If you make the garlic and ginger paste in advance, and precook the meat a little (beef kind of wants to be stewed until it's tender, and then you can fire in the stock it's stewing in) then you can knock out an incredibly tasty curry in the same amount of time it takes to cook the rice. And that's how restaurants do it, because you're not going to wait two hours for a homestyle curry to cook off properly.

OisinMoran 8mo ago

No mention of the Miele Dialog which gets as close as I've seen (though not quite there) to my dream of crispy fried eggs with runny yolk in the microwave. Their big example is being able to cook a fish while it remains in a block of ice. Pretty damn cool! https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/we-tried-an-oven-that-cooks-by-listening-to-your-food-and-its-amazing-miele-dialog https://www.reviewed.com/ovens/features/we-tried-an-oven-tha...

VladVladikoff 8mo ago

https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/corningware-stovetop-pyroceram-set-4-pc-1425486p.html https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/corningware-stovetop-pyro... >Unfortunately, this product is discontinued :(

alnwlsn 8mo ago

For whatever reason, I have an 8" floppy disk with one of these microwave cookbooks on it. Mine seems to be (part of?) one called "The Guaranteed Goof-Proof Microwave Cookbook" by Margie "Microwhiz" Kreschollek. Sadly, I've never been able to read the book in the correct order as I don't know what system it came from - it's something that is single-sided, 77 tracks, FM (single density) encoded with 26 sectors/track, but the text is there in a hex editor. It makes it pretty obvious that it isn't a joke or trick; someone saw it fit to fill up a 250kB disk with this, so somebody must have thought it was a good idea. In an unrelated endeavour, my dad told me he once tried to cook an entire turkey in one of those huge 80's microwaves. He said it didn't turn out very good.

codeulike 8mo ago

This is fascinating because I remember this era when Microwave ovens were a new thing and my parents got one, along with a glossy cookbook with a roast chicken on the front. All of that 'roasting things in the microwave' gor quietly forgotten about in the late 80s, along with the idea that CDs were 'indestructible'. But somehow modern microwaves always have a button on the front with a picture of a roast chicken. Why are microwave UIs so delusional? Just need power %age and time. Microwaves are good for making porridge (oatmeal) though. And I've had some success with scrambled eggs, if you get the method right results are very consistent.

ufo 8mo ago

A microwave lifehack I recently learned: If you're gonna brown some onions, microwave them for a bit before tossing them into the pan. The first step of browning onions is just boiling away the water, which microwaves are great at. You may find that it begins to brown sooner this way.

MarkusWandel 8mo ago

More recent alternate universe is where everyone cooks everything in an Instant Pot, and even more recent is where everyone cooks everything in an air fryer. Every new cooking appliance is a revolution, until it isn't, and only a handful of real use cases for it remain.

OkayPhysicist 8mo ago

The number one feature of modern microwaves that I appreciate is the humidity sensor. Figure out if your microwave has one, and it opens up a whole world of better solutions. Know the popcorn button? Ever wondered why every popcorn manufacturer tells you not to use it, or, if you don't make a habit of taking orders from a paper bag, why it works on some microwaves, but fails miserably on others, either burning the popcorn to a crisp or, more often, leaving half the kernels unpopped? Humidity sensor. In microwaves with a humidity sensor, the microwave runs until the humidity stops rising, (which means the kernels stopped popping) then stops (well, actually mine sets ~30 second timer, then stops). This produces perfect popcorn every time. Doesn't matter the brand of popcorn, it just works. Unfortunately, because this feature was so great, it got imitated on every microwave, regardless of whether it has a humidity sensor or not. On those microwaves, it just sets a flat timer, which cannot adapt to variations in popcorn. Since popcorn manufacturers have no idea which camp your microwave falls into, and can't assume you have any idea either, they just tell people to neglect a fantastic feature.

zakki 8mo ago
Any recommended global brand with humidity sensor?
- OkayPhysicist 8mo ago
  I have some Panasonic microwave that was in the apartment when I got it, and I know LG has it on at least some of their microwaves. Keyword to look for is something along the lines of "Sensor reheat" (which uses the same sensor for reheating food).

willlma 8mo ago

Surprised to see no mention of the Anyday: https://cookanyday.com/ https://cookanyday.com/ I'm partially living in this alternative timeline as an accomplished microwave chef thanks to this thing. I mostly use it to steam veggies. Didn't think the Maillard reaction was possible in the microwave (and that's what I miss the most). The tin-oxide pans are fascinating, though pre-heating them doesn't seem terribly convenient now that we have induction stove-tops. Also, the number of paper towels used...