Microwave combines: microwaves come as a bonus?

Recently, microwave ovens are increasingly acting in combination with other appliances, becoming a kind of microwave combines. Here’s what you get out of such bold combinations.

Natalia KONOPLEVA.

+ Steam

Sometimes the microwave oven dries out some dishes a little too much. To avoid this drawback, they are combined with steam ovens. The result is an appliance that works much more efficiently than a steam oven or just a microwave oven on its own. Foods get hotter and cook 2 to 3 times faster than in a traditional steam cooker.

In addition, the participation of steam in microwave cooking allows you to save the juiciness and natural consistency of foods, leaves a more natural taste.

Moisture sensors detect when water is boiling at the bottom of the steamer, and the power level required to maintain a slow boil for the entire set time is automatically maintained.

The cooking time and microwave power are set automatically by the oven according to the weight of the food. Examples of such a combination are a microwave oven with a steamer from Whirlpool and the new series of microwave ovens Aqua from Samsung.

+ Electronic cookbook

The Italian company De’Longhi was one of the first microwave oven manufacturers to develop an oven with recipes from Italian cuisine embedded in its memory. The oven is able to cook these dishes completely by itself, you only need to put into its chamber the right amount of prepared ingredients and indicate their weight.

Now there are other companies that have equipped their microwave ovens with automatic cooking recipes. But De’Longhi MW 675F1 model still holds the lead, it keeps in its memory 92 recipes, the whole cookbook!

This feature, which automatically cooks by weight, has been adopted by many microwave oven companies. For example, microwave ovens Samsung series Magic Bio have electronic memory, which includes 15 recipes, including microwave grill, microwave convection and microwave steam cooker.

Daewoo offers microwave ovens with five or nine pre-set recipes that automatically cook according to the weight of the food, as well as separate programs for barbecue and pizza ovens.

Panasonic models have up to 8 automatic cooking recipes based on the weight of the products, 2 Daewoo models are equipped with five and nine automatic cooking recipes.

The Sharp Company releases a whole line of models with automatic cooking programs on microwaves, including the programs of traditional American dishes especially for American users: pelmeni, vareniki, blinis, fried potatoes, mashed potatoes and eggs.

Sharp models may have from 8 to 27 kinds of automatic cooking programs sometimes they may be supplemented with “Pizza” program frozen pizza cooking time of 8 minutes . and “Crispy Snack” 5 options .

The possibility of programming your favorite recipes is attractive. You can program a favorite recipe into the oven’s memory and it will be precisely executed every time you press a button.

LG makes a model with twenty ready-to-use, automatic recipes, plus the option to put three of your favorite recipes into the oven memory. Some Panasonic and Samsung microwave ovens are able to “memorize” 1 or 2 recipes.

Bosch and Siemens microwave ovens equipped with the QuantumSpeed system have up to 33 preset programs, plus the option to save up to six of your favorite programs.

As you can see, so far no microwave oven model has surpassed the number of recipes “cookbook” model De’Longhi. Most likely, it is not necessary, because according to statistics, a housewife in practice, usually uses no more than a dozen recipes. In addition, there is now a new opportunity to add to the microwave oven “cookbook” just the recipes that interest you. And in any quantity. We will talk about that in the next section.

+ Internet

LG Electronics has released into the American market a microwave oven equipped with a communication port for Internet access. Dialogue mode in the network is realized thanks to the multiline LCD display its size is 80×52,2 mm .

You don’t need constant access to the Internet – it’s enough to plug in once in a while and let the oven download the recipes you’ve chosen to its memory. According to these programs, the microwave oven itself sets the cooking time and power levels for the selected dish.

LG Electronics has launched a website to serve its appliances online. It can be used to download recipes to the Internet oven, for example seasonal recipes and information on the calorie content of each meal, for those who like to diet. Internet-enabled microwave ovens can continually expand their functions and enhance their and your! professional level.

Daewoo also created an information technology for the Internet microwave oven with grill and convection.

+ “Hot” light

The compact oven with QuantumSpeed light wave technology was created by Siemens. This novelty is designed for fast cooking, which can be achieved through a unique combination of heating elements, the use of light energy and microwaves. A similar model is now available from Bosch.

Firm LG Electronics has created an oven Solar DOM – “Solar Dome”, which along with the traditional heating elements grill, convection, microwaves uses a halogen emitter. Its spectrum is very similar to the spectrum of sunlight and has a strong infrared component, which is efficiently absorbed by the food to be cooked.

When the oven is operating, you can see the dome-shaped, bright, slanting sunlight through the tinted glass door. The mirrored, spacious interior has a semi-cylindrical shape for good reason.

This “lens” focuses thermal and microwave radiation on the food to be cooked, achieving maximum results. Cooking time is reduced by a factor of 4, while reducing energy consumption by 50 percent.

+ Kitchen air purifier

The German company Bauknecht was the first to develop the original MicroTandem model, where the microwave oven installed over the cooktop simultaneously serves as a kitchen hood. It acts as a stove hood during oven operation and when cooking on the hob underneath.

The hood integrated into the microwave oven works in flow and circulation modes with a very good output of 530 m3/h. There are 3 power levels.

Samsung makes similar microwave ovens combined with a hood. They only work in circulating mode and have 2 power levels. On the bottom plane of the device is integrated lighting for the hob.

+ Other goodies

• Among the latest innovations is a success with customers new LG microwave oven, combined with a toaster for browning slices of bread.

• Quite a few ovens are enhanced by a horizontal rotisserie positioned diagonally across the oven cavity or a vertical rotisserie with multiple skewers.

• The Samsung company complemented one of its microwave ovens with a radio, working in FM. A trifle, but pleasant.

• Bosch has equipped its built-in microwave ovens with a radio interference suppression function for those who listen to the radio at the same time as the oven is in operation, ensuring that there is no backwash on the electrical grid for better operation of televisions and computers.

In light of all the new features listed, some modern microwave ovens are more like ovens than microwave ovens, splendidly combining both functions. They are distinguished by convenient management. These are microwave ovens from Miele, Bosch, Siemens, Whirlpool, and some “advanced” Asian ovens that communicate with the user through the display.