Nuking Bread

Had a terrific dinner with the family last night at Semirami’s with only one slight flaw -- I swear the pita bread had been re-warmed in the microwave. This is anathema to me. While the hummos was so good, I ate it anyway, slight spots of the pita were pasty, while others were hard. No one else seemed to notice, so I didn’t mention it to anyone.

I’ve long noted Taquerias that microwaved their tortillas and avoided them in the future. I was taught young to reheat tortillas right on the stove burner. Cook’s Illustrated web site recommends microwaving bread to thaw or refresh stale, but I would never do such a thing. The thought of re-heating a slice of pizza in the microwave fills me with revulsion!

Obviously, this is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I wonder how others feel? Should I bother trying to communicate this to places I want to enjoy? Or should I just nuke me a Hot Pocket and get over it?

-ramon

Rick Bayless himself agrees that the microwave is an acceptable way to heat tortillas:

http://www.fronterakitchens.com/cooking/techniques/reheat_tortilla.html

The method he describes for moistening the tortillas first works well in the microwave as well if you wrap them with a towel and let them sit/steam for a bit afterwards. Is it as good as if you heated them on a griddle or in a steamer? If you experiment with your microwave and get it right, I'd say it is for a small number. Steaming is superior for a large number.


The same methods work with pita, you just have to figure out how to get it right so that they steam a bit and stay "fluffy" without drying out or being inconsistently heated. Maybe I'm alone in feeling that the microwave is a tool and like all tools it has its uses and misuses. Unfortunately, its push button "simplicity" encourages most people to forego the effort necessary to use it correctly and avoid it entirely when it's inappropriate.

rien

Ramon wrote:Had a terrific dinner with the family last night at Semirami’s with only one slight flaw -- I swear the pita bread had been re-warmed in the microwave. This is anathema to me. While the hummos was so good, I ate it anyway, slight spots of the pita were pasty, while others were hard.

Not necessarily microwaving -- the pita could have been improperly baked in the first place. Or it could have been stale (hard spots) and then oversteamed (pastiness).

Ramon wrote:Cook’s Illustrated web site recommends microwaving bread to thaw or refresh stale, but I would never do such a thing. The thought of re-heating a slice of pizza in the microwave fills me with revulsion!

Obviously, this is a personal pet peeve of mine, but I wonder how others feel? Should I bother trying to communicate this to places I want to enjoy? Or should I just nuke me a Hot Pocket and get over it?

It really depends on the kind of bread. A stale baguette won't be improved by this treatment, but softer breads, with more ingredients and which rely less on crisp crusts can be microwaved successfully.

With just two of us, and only one who's really a bread enthusiast, we have to keep bread and rolls in the freezer. Things like croissants and sour dough or anything else I want crisped, I warm in the conventional oven. But whole wheat sandwich bread, hot dog buns and similar things get a few seconds in the microwave.

rien wrote:Maybe I'm alone in feeling that the microwave is a tool and like all tools it has its uses and misuses. Unfortunately, its push button "simplicity" encourages most people to forego the effort necessary to use it correctly

Absolutely. Just about anything that needs moist heat can be cooked well in the microwave oven. But the learning curve is steeper than for a conventional oven and cooking is much more variable from oven to oven.

Certainly a microwave is unacceptable for corn tortillas, but for flour they work just fine. If they're in a closed warmer, the steam should stay with them, and not turn them into leather.

Pita and other breads are touchier. If I want to eat within 15 seconds of a short nuke, the microwave can refresh a stale bread pretty well, but unless ingested immediately they turn hard as soon as the starch crystals cool off again, especially with the outgassing of steam that will occur.

Personally, I like a quick shot in the toaster for pita bread. With a good fresh pocket-style pita, the open edge tends to re-seal and you get a crusty, steam-filled pouch.