7 Microwave Hacks Every Home Cook Should Know

I'm a professional chef and I love my microwave.

Most of us think of it just as a box to reheat food,

maybe make popcorn, but it can do a lot more than that.

There are so many reasons why all professional kitchens

have a microwave, so let's talk about them.

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[hands clapping]

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My favorite button

and perhaps the most powerful button on the microwave

is the Power button.

The Power button is similar to adjusting the heat

on your stove top.

By adjusting the power level,

it doesn't reduce the output of the power.

It's simply controls

how many times the microwave comes on and off.

If I set the microwave at 50% power for one minute,

then the microwave will be on for 30 seconds

and off for 30 seconds at various intervals.

Lowering the power can help you cook more gently

and much more evenly.

And I'm going to demo that

using my favorite mug cake recipe.

It's basically dumping all of your ingredients in the cup,

stirring it together.

Water and oil to keep everything nice and moist.

And the fact that I can make this cake in the microwave

in less than five minutes blows my mind every single time.

The batter is ready

and now, I'm gonna put it in the microwave.

[microwave door thudding]

3, 0, 0.

And then power level, I go 50% power.

It's usually 10%, 20%, 30%, that's how it works.

And then, start.

While that's happening,

let's talk about the science real quick.

There is a thing in the microwave called a magnetron.

A magnetron converts electricity

into electromagnetic waves or microwaves.

They excite all of the molecules in your food.

And because it's vibrating at such high frequency,

it creates a lot of friction, which generates heat,

which then cooks your food.

Oh, it is done and it smells very good.

Just like how you would rest a steak when you grill it

and you give it time to carry over cook,

the same rule applies to microwaves.

It's beautiful.

So, my mug cake is ready.

And this whipped cream, it looks cute.

This is such a good decision.

Oh my god.

Look, the crumb of the cake is like spongy.

It's dark.

There's a little bit of whipped cream

that's melting on there.

Hmm.

Cooking it at 50% power

really helped me get a nice even cook.

You could see when I dug in,

like it's evenly cooked from edge to center.

So for ultra precise cooking, use the Power button.

It is the most underrated button on your microwave.

[hands clapping]

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Another great use for the microwave

is when you want a crispy garnish.

For instance, you want crispy shallots on top.

Maybe it's like golden garlic chips on top,

but you don't want a lot of it.

That's when the microwave comes into its own

by acting as a mini fryer.

So, you can do really small quantities of things.

You start by submerging your ingredient of choice,

in this case, shallots, in the oil.

As the oil heats up, it transfers the heat to the shallots.

The steam from the shallots will escape

and it'll continue to become golden brown and crispy

in the hot oil.

I put the shallots and oil

in the three minutes at full power.

For the shallots to fry,

the oil has to be at a certain temperature,

and that's usually between 325 and 350.

So, the microwave helps get to that precise temperature.

You can see the change in the shallots

just from three minutes of being in the microwave.

They've really reduced in size.

A lot of moisture has evaporated.

You can see a little bit of color.

They're about to start cooking

and becoming golden brown and crisp.

At this stage, I want to have some control over the cook.

I'm going to go in in shorter time interval,

so I'm going to probably put it for like a minute.

What a dramatic difference in that one minute.

So, many more of the shallots are brown.

This is very close to color that we're looking for.

The sugars in the shallots are caramelizing essentially.

Most of the shallots here are perfectly brown,

but I see some bits that are a bit pale.

So, I'll pop this back in for like 30 seconds.

So in under five minutes,

I have lovely golden brown shallots.

I'm going to hit it lightly with a bit of salt

just to season them.

And you can really see they're golden brown

and crunchy and crispy, because all of the moisture

was driven out as they were cooked in the microwave.

And then, you end up

with these delicate little wisps of shallots.

So in under five minutes, poof, right here

that your microwave can be a mini fryer.

[hands clapping]

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Another fun use for the microwave

is being able to toast small quantities of nuts.

And today, I have almonds to demo how cool it is.

The thing about an almond

is it contains a lot of natural oil.

And the good thing about oils or fats

is they perform really well in the microwave

and as they get heated up,

the heat transfers very effectively,

toasting the almond from the inside out.

This works really well for any other nuts

such as cashews, walnuts, macadamia nuts.

I have my almonds on a relatively flat plate

in a single layer, so that the heat conducts evenly.

And I'm gonna put this in the microwave

for maybe four minutes at full power

and we'll break one open and see what happens.

A very common way for most people to toast nuts

would be on the stove top.

That works, but it isn't as effective

as using an oven or a microwave, for instance.

On the stove top, the nuts usually only toast on the outside

and the inside often remains raw.

Whereas when you're using an oven or microwave,

the heat penetrates from the inside out

and the nuts are evenly cooked.

So, the almonds have been in there for four minutes

and they smell really toasty.

To test if they're done, I'm gonna break one open.

And here is one that's still pretty creamy and pale inside.

So, I think it needs a little bit more time.

I'm going to give it a stir just to redistribute

and make sure everything is evenly cooked.

The food that's often on the outdoor edges of the plate

will get cooked more than the on the inside.

I added another 30 seconds to the cook time

and these almonds are now perfectly toasted.

This is the almond that was toasted for just four minutes

and this was an additional 30 seconds after being stirred.

[upbeat music]

Oh.

In under five minutes in the microwave,

perfectly toasted nuts.

[hands clapping]

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It may sound a bit counterintuitive,

but the microwave is also good for rehydrating.

Brown sugar is very susceptible to getting hard

and the microwave can bring it right back to life.

Right here, I have some brown sugar

and you can see that it doesn't really yield to pressure.

I have my bowl

and I'm just gonna do a little bit of the brown sugar.

And I have a square of wet paper towel.

So it's not sopping wet, but it is quite damp.

This part is important.

Place a piece of plastic wrap on top,

so that the steam generated from the paper towel

is trapped inside the bowl

and that's what helps rehydrate the brown sugar.

So, I'm gonna put this in the microwave

for 30 seconds at full power.

As it heats up in the microwave,

also water molecules in that wet paper towel

are being agitated and it's being converted into steam,

which is then being trapped by the plastic wrap.

So, you can see actually the steam that was created

and trapped under the plastic wrap, which is a great sign.

Under plastic wrap with steam

always unwrapped away from you.

The sugar has been rehydrated

thanks to that wet paper towel, which you could do the same

with a slice of apple or a slice of bread as well.

Without the microwave,

this would've taken probably a few hours, if not overnight

if I put like a slice of apple or bread or paper towel.

But in the microwave, it was simply a matter of 30 seconds.

[hands clapping]

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Another great use for the microwave

is to make sauces, particularly custards,

in a very easy hands-off way.

A custard, like the one we're making today,

is a kind of emulsion.

And emulsion is essentially taking two ingredients

that may not want to always be together,

like fat and water, and forcing them to stay together.

Today, I'm making a creme anglaise.

A creme anglaise is a sort of thin-pouring custard,

which is usually used as a finishing sauce in desserts.

To start, I'm going to pour my milk.

And then, I have sugar and cornstarch.

A little bit of salt.

I'll whisk this to make sure

that all the cornstarch is dissolved.

I'm gonna put it in the microwave.

With this step,

you're essentially kind of dissolving the sugar

and activating the cornstarch.

This is a large volume of milk,

so I'm going to do four minutes at regular power,

at full power.

The milk is getting hot,

and the sugar is going to dissolve,

and the corn starch is going to get activated.

You can use this technique to make similar custards,

such as a Hollandaise, for instance,

or even a chocolate or vanilla pudding.

If I was doing this on the stove top,

I would be adjusting the heat a little bit.

I would be whisking constantly

to make sure nothing is burning or catching.

But with the microwave,

I'm just standing here and talking to you.

So after four minutes in the microwave, it's steaming.

There's like a thin skin on top.

And this is an important step

when you are making a custard in the microwave

is to go in and whisk periodically.

Nowhere as much as you would need to on a stove top.

I can see that the sugars completely dissolve,

but it hasn't quite thickened yet

and the cornstarch hasn't been activated.

So, I'm gonna put it back for two minutes at full power.

Now that the sauce is thickened into the texture I want,

I'm going to add my egg yolks.

I'm whisking the egg yolks in just to combine

and making sure it's well incorporated.

Custards rely on gentle heat to cook

and prevent the eggs from overcooking or curdling.

So by reducing the power level in the microwave,

I'm going to ensure that the custard is silky.

Power button is really your best friend.

I'm really looking to just sort of pasteurize

and very lightly cook the egg yolks.

So, I might just do 45 seconds at 50% power.

That's the first 45 seconds.

I'm going to give this a light whisk.

It's very close to being done

and you can see it looks very smooth.

So, I'll put it back in for about 30 additional seconds.

This looks very good.

It has thickened to the right texture.

For how little I had to whisk, this is incredibly smooth.

And at this stage is when I add my vanilla.

That's it, that's the custard.

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That's a very impressive custard coming out of a microwave.

Custards are often thought of as being finicky

and very temperature sensitive, which they are,

but doing it in the microwave

makes this extremely easy and very hands off.

You are doing a great job.

[hands clapping]

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I know a lot of us cook bacon in the microwave,

so it's not particularly new or a secret.

But I think the reason so many of us do use the microwave

to cook bacon is it makes a lot less mess

than cooking the bacon on the stove top.

And it recreates the same texture as oven-cooked bacon

in that it is crispy and evenly cooked,

but in far less time.

The way that I do it is line the plate with paper towel,

lay the bacon across the surface,

leaving a little bit of space between.

And then, I'm gonna cover it with another paper towel

and then my create for about four minutes.

The paper towel on the bottom is going to absorb grease

and the paper towel on top is going to prevent

the splatters from going everywhere.

I'm gonna cook this at full power.

Pretty soon, you can start to hear

a little bit of crackle pop in there,

because fat conducts heat so well

that it starts cooking very rapidly.

Something to note about cooking in the microwave,

whether it's baking or cooking protein

is things may not always brown as they would in an oven,

because the oven is dry heat and the microwave,

the steam is trapped within the cavity,

but the food will still be cooked.

And the proteins, as in the case of the bacon,

will still denature just as they would on the stove top

or in the oven.

And by denature, I just mean

that the protein molecules in the food

are broken down and realigned

because of heat that's applied to them.

Four minutes in, and that's the finished bacon.

And when you pick up a rasher, it's very crispy

and you can see that it's perfectly cooked.

All of the fat is perfectly rendered.

On a stove top, the rashers cook not as evenly,

so you get different textures.

So, I would say that the microwave is great

if you like crispy bacon.

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It's very crunchy.

While a lot of us know that we can make bacon,

you can also poach eggs in the microwave.

I think the microwave is a great tool for poaching eggs,

especially if you're cooking just one or two eggs.

So to poach my egg, I'm actually going to heat

about a quarter cup of water in the microwave first.

The water is steaming hot.

You can see the steam coming out.

So, what I'm going to do is crack my egg

into that hot water.

This is an important step when you're poaching eggs.

Eggs have a thin membrane, so you have to pierce them

just so it doesn't burst in the microwave.

You piercing just the white, not the yolk really.

After you pierce it a couple times,

I'm gonna cover it for plastic wrap.

Similar to the brown sugar,

you want to trap the steam in there.

I like to use lower power

just so that the eggs cook more evenly

because poached eggs, you want them

to be a little bit runny in the center.

So, cooking it at medium powered about 50%

really helps ensure good results.

The eggs are cooking in much the same way as the bacon is,

in that the proteins are reacting to heat and denaturing.

But here, the eggs are steaming.

They're cooked because of the steam

trapped by the plastic wrap.

Slightly less than a minute at 50% power.

And I can see the whites look opaque

and there's a lot of steam built up on the surface.

The eggs have to sit for like another 45 seconds

just to continue cooking.

The residual steam will finish the process.

Now, I'm going to remove the plastic wrap away from me.

Just gently fish your egg out,

and then I'm going to transfer it onto a paper towel.

I'm gonna season the eggs

with a little bit of salt and pepper as well.

So, that's breakfast.

Two different proteins, bacon and poached eggs,

all made in the microwave.

So, I encourage all of you to look at the microwave

as more than just a tool to reheat food

and think of it as a valuable addition

to your cooking equipment.

[playful music]

[Shilpa Uskokovic laughing]

Nice work, microwave.

We did good together today.

[Shilpa Uskokovic laughing]