# Microwave



## Thisiseasy (Aug 3, 2017)

I went to dinner at a friend's house and she served salmon. I really enjoyed it and asked her for the recipe. She let me know that she cooked the entire thing from raw in her microwave!

The food tasted great, but I didn't know microwaves could cook food... Has anyone else tried this? Can you cook in the microwave or is it just for reheating?


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

Microwaves move water molecules at a fast rate causing heat. THIS is what is "cooking" your food. I'm not a fan of "cooking" in a microwave. It is convenient for like baked potatoes, but a delicate dish like fish or other meat, not so much. But that's just an opinion.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

My wife precooks a lot of stuff in the microwave and she often cooks different vegetables completely in the microwave. Never heard of any one cooking raw fish in a microwave. My microwave use is pretty much limited to heating up leftover or making popcorn.


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

In the 70s people were offering cooking lessons for the microwaves. I am sure you could still find cook books.


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## mark sr (Jun 13, 2017)

Ya, in the mid 70s I was working in Arkansas and someone opened up a microwave only restaurant. I ate there once, the coffee was good but after that the taste/texture of the food went downhill.


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

https://greatist.com/health/surprising-healthy-microwave-recipes#snacks


*34 Surprisingly Delicious Things You Can Make in a Microwave*​


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## Bud9051 (Nov 11, 2015)

I'll add my opinion as well. I wouldn't want to be without my microwave as it speeds up the kitchen process and saves money.
I buy extra whatever when on sale and freeze it. A couple of minutes in the mw (time varies with what I'm thawing) and then I cook it as usual. Put leftovers in refrigerator and again use mw to reheat.

As for cooking fish with mw only I definitely would not. Fish cooks fast but needs to be cooked without spots being missed. A mw can miss areas and fish needs all areas to reach that min temperature. 

Our food supplies are not as safe to eat as they once were but fish has always had its concerns (I'll spare you). Use the stove or oven is best.

Bud


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## Thisiseasy (Aug 3, 2017)

That's wild. I never knew people used them like that. I'm personally a fan of the grill.


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## lenaitch (Feb 10, 2014)

Thisiseasy said:


> I didn't know microwaves could cook food



Part of me wants to ask what you thought microwave ovens were for.


While I'm also not sure about cooking fish in a microwave, the new machines apparently have some new features. Our 10+ year old Sharp is making death noises so the missus wants a new one. Many new ovens have sensors that monitor the cooking by sampling the moisture/steam emitted by the food.
Perhaps the fish was cooked in a bag - sort of like steaming. I agree that meat and fish need to be cooked evenly and thoroughly.


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## ktownskier (Aug 22, 2018)

As long as you realize what a microwave does and doesn't do, then you can use a microwave to cook in it.

What a microwave does is excite water molecules to move which creates steam. As long as what you want to cook, can be cooked with steam, then you can use a microwave. That is why a microwave is so great for veggies. 

I also use them for warming up shellfish. I let them defrost and then wrap them in wet paper towels and plastic wrap and steam them. The same with corn. I peal off the outer husks, soak them in water for a few minutes, wrap them in plastic wrap and microwave up to 4 ears for 5 minutes and let them rest for a few minutes.


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## flhtcu (Oct 12, 2014)

I've made excellent beef roasts,soups,even lasagna in microwaves. Basically just about anything you can cook in a pot or an oven,can be done in the microwave.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

I took Food Science courses that had labs, too. We would cook things with salt, without salt, too long, too little, knead too much, etc. It included microwaving, too. We then rated the food. Like a test kitchen.

I'll never forget the angel food cake made from scratch that came out hard as a rock. We bounced it off the wall, laughing :biggrin2: The angel food cakemix came out ok because of the chemicals.

I've never bought a microwave since.

Grilled food seems like the opposite of a microwave.
She may have steamed the fish, as mentioned, turning it to heat it evenly.


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## lenaitch (Feb 10, 2014)

When I was a kid in the '60 I drove delivery for a restaurant and they had this wondrous machine mounted above the prep table that cooked food without heat. We weren't smart enough to try to figure it out by I remember the owner saying it cost a fortune. I just bought a new one for $170.


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## u3b3rg33k (Jul 17, 2018)

I cook stuff in the microwave all the time. i've even used it to rescue underbaked bread. I don't know any other way to cook something from the inside out. Just push "potato". 

I picked up a $100 inverter microwave, never going back to a "regular" one. uses PWM instead of long on/off for power control. means when you set it at half power, it's actually putting out 600W, not 1200W for 5 seconds, then 0W for 5 seconds. great for not blowing up soup and thawing meat without cooking it (so you can grill it). 

There is no more efficient way to put energy directly into food than a microwave.


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## CaptTom (Dec 31, 2017)

u3b3rg33k said:


> ...I don't know any other way to cook something from the inside out. Just push "potato"...
> 
> I picked up a $100 inverter microwave, never going back to a "regular" one.


1) I've heard that the "cooks inside out" thing is a myth. The way I heard it, the microwaves don't penetrate to the inside any faster than the outside, so at best it cooks evenly. Assuming the microwaves may not penetrate that far at all, the opposite would be true. This is also consistent with my experience. Re-heating, for example, a bowl of stew or chili, the middle is cold when the outside is boiling. And for the potato example, perhaps it's the skin that's holding in the steam, cooking it from around the outside, not the inside.

But I must admit this is all hearsay and conjecture. I'd be happy to be corrected.

2) Long, unrelated story: The employees in one area kept calling to complain that their network connection was "down." We'd send a technician over, and they never found any problem. Once someone in our (IT) department complained that this always seemed to happen around lunchtime...

You see where this is going. Yes, they'd just bough a new "inverter type" microwave. It turns out the inverter operates at exactly the same frequency as the WiFi network. We swapped them for the microwave in our own break room and solved the problem.

I learned a lot about how to use spectrum analyzers, and about the various properties of different substances to absorb or reflect microwave wavelengths. It took a while to prove to ourselves, and everyone else, that this really was the problem.

I never really noticed a difference with how our "new" inverter microwave worked, but then again, I was only warming up my lunch, never defrosting or cooking a meal.


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## Startingover (Apr 18, 2012)

I’d starve without my microwave to fix frozen veggies or reheat things. 

Fish cooks so quickly not sure why microwave needed.


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## u3b3rg33k (Jul 17, 2018)

CaptTom said:


> 1) I've heard that the "cooks inside out" thing is a myth. The way I heard it, the microwaves don't penetrate to the inside any faster than the outside, so at best it cooks evenly. Assuming the microwaves may not penetrate that far at all, the opposite would be true. This is also consistent with my experience. Re-heating, for example, a bowl of stew or chili, the middle is cold when the outside is boiling. And for the potato example, perhaps it's the skin that's holding in the steam, cooking it from around the outside, not the inside.


well since it heats water (a bit of a misnomer, but works for the illustration), the outer portion of the loaf is already baked and has a much lower density. so the majority of the energy passes through the baked portion and works on the inside.


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## u3b3rg33k (Jul 17, 2018)

Microwaves operate in the ISM band (industrial scientific medical) which at the time of invention was primarily 2.4GHz, which is also where lots of wifi resides. it's by no means the "best" frequency, it was simply available. 

USB dongle spectrum analyzers aren't too expensive. I once had a cordless phone that would destroy wifi channels (see the spikes). a good access point would hop channels, but most only listen for noise when they boot up and then stay there. in this case you can see the spike would've destroyed channel 1. moving to channel 2 solved the problem.


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## Nik333 (Mar 1, 2015)

There's something so pleasurable about cooking a sauce with garlic in butter or olive oil on the stove . . . I can't see giving it up. Or cut mushrooms absorbing butter. . . 

It's Julia Child's fault.


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## Two Knots (Nov 12, 2011)

I make salmon filets in the micro a lot of times...
season the salmon, ( salt, pepper, sage, paprika, garlic powder, parsley)
then sprinkle breadcrumbs on top, then dot with butter
and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and micro
on high for just a short time - like maybe two minutes ( we like our
salmon medium rare in the middle) It’s delicious and fast. Trust me! :biggrin2:

Serve with lemon wedges and a saracha sauce. 
siracha sauce = mix a couple tablespoons mayo with a squirt or two
of sriracha sauce.

Son went on a fishing trip last weekend and gave us 
lots of thick bluefish...I made it the same way...It was delicious!


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