Table of Contents
Advertisement
3. SUCCESSFUL COOKING
This chapter gives you helpful hints for cooking with your new microwave oven.
GETTING RESULTS
Follow these tips to get the best results from your microwave oven.
Keeping an eye on things
While microwave cooking doesn't require your undivided attention and you don't have
to worry about burning things, always cook for less time than stated in the recipe. You
can always cook the food longer, but overcooked and burned food is ruined forever.
The instructions in this book have been formulated with great care, but your success
in preparing them depends on how much attention you pay to the food as it cooks.
It is important that you watch your food while it cooks. Your microwave oven is
equipped with a light that turns on automatically when the oven operates so that you
can see inside and check the progress of your recipe. Think of the directions given in
recipes as a minimum. If the food seems to be cooking unevenly, simply make the
necessary adjustments you think appropriate to correct the problem.
Cooking times
Many factors affect cooking times. The temperature of the ingredients used in a recipe
makes a big difference in cooking times. For example, a cake made with ice-cold
butter, milk, and eggs takes considerably longer to bake than one made with
ingredients that are at room temperature.
Most recipes give you a range of cooking times. In general, food remains under-
cooked at the lower end of the time range. You may sometimes want to cook your
food beyond the maximum time given, according to personal preference. The
governing philosophy of this book is that it is best for a recipe to be conservative in
giving cooking times. While undercooked food may always be cooked a bit more,
overcooked food is ruined for good.
Some of the recipes, particularly those for bread, cakes, and custard, recommend that
the food be removed from the oven when it is slightly undercooked. This is not a
mistake. When allowed to stand covered, these foods continue to cook outside of the
oven as the heat trapped within the outer portions of the foods gradually travels
inward. If the food is left in the oven until it is cooked all the way through, the outer
portions may become overcooked or even burned.
As you gain experience in using your microwave oven, you become increasingly
skillful in estimating both cooking and standing times for various foods.
16
Advertisement
Table of Contents
