On this Special Flavors website,
our general quest is to spend little time in front of the stove, while
still producing top-quality food. We don't want something for nothing,
just a lot for very little. Maybe we should be called The Greedy
Bunch.
Look at it this way: Every minute not spent in
front of the stove can be spent petting your child, cat, or dog, or else
drinking coffee or wine.
The microwave invariably satisfies the first
half of the equation, intrinsically taking less time than other methods.
As to food produced, there are four theoretical possibilities:
***** Better quality than any other method, bar none
*** Same quality as best other practical method,
with the advantage of reduced time
* Some sacrifice in quality,
acceptable to many as a trade-off for reduced time
nr Unacceptable quality, forget it
For a top quality ***** rating, I nominate
corn on the cob. (Wrap an ear in saran wrap, cook on high for 5
minutes.) For another method, see Recent Mail, 7/21/02.
Baked potatoes seem to be *** when the ultimate
use is for mashed potatoes. When they are actually to be served as baked
potatoes, some people (according to a lengthy discussion in Cook's
Illustrated) prefer the quality of the dry skin produced in
oven-baking, so here they would rate a *.
These are nominations only. We don't use the
microwave much, so need to learn from viewers who do. There are a lot of
hidden treasures out there, we have no doubt. Please feel free to send
in your favorites.
Microwave Cooking Generally
If you wish to pursue this
subject, we recommend the following website:
www.microwavecookingfor
one.com
This site is run by Tracy Grant and promotes her mother's book, Microwave
Cooking for One by Marie T. Smith. (To order click Amazon
Microwave.)
From this book you can make breakfast, soups, sandwiches,
egg-pasta-and-rice dishes, vegetables, sauces and preserves, salads,
fish and shellfish, beef, other meats, poultry, beverages and snacks,
cakes and frostings, cookies and candy, pies, puddings and custards, and
desserts. There is a superb index of 18 pages.
The book is written for one, as the author believed that it is easier
to multiply recipes than divide them. The book came out of ten years'
experience, so we know that they worked for the author.
Importantly, this website and book give you all those details you
apparently need for successful microwave cooking. There are power
considerations (700 watts is standard). Size and shape of utensils
apparently exert a critical influence.
The site provides an actual recipe for each chapter. We tried the
artichoke. It took five minutes and was just fine. To our taste, this
was fully competitive with our customary 40-minute steaming. Guess
we'll convert to the microwave for artichokes, and pet our cat more, if
we had a cat.
Tracy advises that the Stuffed Shrimp recipe on the site is a
favorite of hers and also of her husband. Try it and let us know
what you think.
Equipment
Equipment is an issue for two reasons. First, the
cooking bowls--size, shape, and material--affect the end result. Second, the
best bowls are not generally available in stores.
This problem is solved by Tracy, who has studied the
subject intensively, and provides direct links to order the necessary cooking
equipment on the Internet. Click
on her site above, and you will get all the details.
Cooking for One
Microwave aside, cooking for one has attracted some
attention. A North Dakota University site contains a treatise on
the subject. About.com provides access to a number of sites
with recipes.
