Beets in the microwave...

LTH,

I've never done any serious cooking in the microwave. Melting butter, chocolate on occasion, melting frozen stock, and heating leftovers. I'd rather wait an hour for a real baked potato than sit down to one from the microwave.

We're enjoying beets lately, and rather than heat up the whole apartment just to roast two beets, I decided to try the microwave. 13 minutes covered with a bit of water. We found them just as good as the ones I roasted for two hours last week.

i use the microwave a lot for cooking/steaming fresh vegetables. you might try your beets without any water, just covered in a pyrex casserole, for example. surprisingly, you can peel them first(which is easiest) and they won't bleed heavily while cooking. the beauty of the microwave is that you retain all the nutrition of the veggies without losing any to the water you'd normally steam veggies in. potatoes are not best cooked in the microwave, but they are an exception. broccoli, asparagus, green beans are terrific and require no water. i put them on a dinner plate and use a special plastic lid with a hole in the center. i avoid plastic wrap- dont want chemicals leaching into my food. the one exception to the no potato rule is occasionally, usually on a cold winter day i'll microwave a whole sweet potato (poked with fork holes) and discard the skin and add a little butter and salt. it only takes about 5 minutes and it's delicious. the skin is lost, but it makes a extremely nutritious fast meal. i am very frustrated by the number of people who don't appreciate the many uses of the microwave. justjoan

I often do potatoes in the microwave to get them par-cooked before I roast in the oven or put them on the grill. It helps speed things up.

Trader Joe's has been selling cooked, vacuum-packed baby beets in their produce cooler. These are just like the ones you can find in Europe (although I've seen a number of varieties there and these are just your standard red). A very convenient convenience food.

You can microwave a potato, so long as you aren't expecting a crisp-skinned, creamy centered baked potato. If you want steamed potato pieces, it's just fine.

It's the most common way I'll cook broccoli -- a quick steam is all it needs.

One of the more useful things is to microwave eggplant slices or dice before using them in a stir fry. You get your eggplant cooked without it soaking up a quart of oil in the process.

The poster above who said that you don't lose all the moisture is only partly right: on a dense root or stem veggie, it's hard to hurt them by nuking them. More delicate veggies such as asparagus, mushrooms, etc. can get rather dried out or shriveled by escaping steam.

I like to cook artichokes in the microwave, in a covered glass casserole dish, a little water and lemon juice added, 10-12 minutes depending on the size.

Good tip on the eggplant JoelF, thanks. I have just started using the microwave for spaghetti squash. I was a roasting snob before, but never again. Didn't have to heat up the oven and split down the middle, cleaned it, face 2 sides down with a little water, covered and perfectly cooked in 10 min. I just add some good olive oil and lots of pepper and grate some hard italian cheese on top.

for something like baba ganouj, you can cook the entire eggplant in the microwave. i stick garlic cloves in a few slits in the eggplant and cook it till it's very soft. depending on the size it only takes about 4-6 minutes. justjoan

justjoan wrote:for something like baba ganouj, you can cook the entire eggplant in the microwave. i stick garlic cloves in a few slits in the eggplant and cook it till it's very soft. depending on the size it only takes about 4-6 minutes. justjoan

Isn't the whole point of baba ganoush to char the skin (on a grill, in an oven, directly over the flames of a stove, or whatever) so that the charred skin imparts that smoky flavor which makes the dish what it is? Can you achieve a charred skin in the nuker?

Kennyz wrote:

justjoan wrote:for something like baba ganouj, you can cook the entire eggplant in the microwave. i stick garlic cloves in a few slits in the eggplant and cook it till it's very soft. depending on the size it only takes about 4-6 minutes. justjoan

Isn't the whole point of baba ganoush to char the skin (on a grill, in an oven, directly over the flames of a stove, or whatever) so that the charred skin imparts that smoky flavor which makes the dish what it is? Can you achieve a charred skin in the nuker?

I was going to say the same thing. I'm very picky about eggplant - if it's not firm, thinly-sliced, or heavily seasoned, I'm not a fan (don't care for the texture otherwise). So the smokiness of baba ghanoush is the only thing that keeps me from putting it on the "no thanks" list.

you guys are right, that it lacks the smokiness of roasting an eggplant. but i still think it tastes great; and if it's a choice on a hot day to turn on the oven or use the microwave, i go for the microwave. i have mixed feelings about the texture of eggplant- but the smooth puree i get from the microwave i like. in cool weather, i'd roast it. i like the following in baba ganouj: tahini, lime juice, garlic, salt, pepper and cilantro. i dont use the skin from the microwaved eggplant. since 'chef earl' (a local company) introduced his baba ganouj at whole foods a few years ago, i tend to buy his. it's smoky, and consistently delicious, without too much fat. jj

My neighbor suggested this to me the other day, and it has quickly become the only way I want to do sweet corn from now on: in the microwave. No one here in Casa Katie likes sweet corn on the grill; if you do, good for you, but it's not moving here. So I've been boiling my sweet corn - til now. Cleaned, broken in half, in a covered dish with a little water in the bottom, 5-10 minutes depending on how much corn you're doing at once, and you get all the corn taste with no waterlogging. And it's the quickest and, I'm guessing, the most energy-efficient, way to cook sweet corn that I know. Glad I learned this method.

katie, you might want to try my method for microwaving corn. leave it in its husk, uncovered on a plate for about 1-2 minutes, depending on how fresh it it. i do 2-3 at a time, no more. again, the time is variable- probably about 4 minutes for 3 ears. justjoan

justjoan, I can see going either way - cleaned and covered, or in the husk and uncovered. Timing doesn't seem critical to me, as long as you don't overdo it. I have a lot more corn in the garage fridge, so I'll run some tests.

Katie wrote:My neighbor suggested this to me the other day, and it has quickly become the only way I want to do sweet corn from now on: in the microwave. No one here in Casa Katie likes sweet corn on the grill; if you do, good for you, but it's not moving here. So I've been boiling my sweet corn - til now. Cleaned, broken in half, in a covered dish with a little water in the bottom, 5-10 minutes depending on how much corn you're doing at once, and you get all the corn taste with no waterlogging. And it's the quickest and, I'm guessing, the most energy-efficient, way to cook sweet corn that I know. Glad I learned this method.

We picked up corn from Stanley's the other day and did almost the very same thing Sunday to make elote. I agree, it works very well. I did two batches of 5-6 ears with a tiny amout of water and nuked them for 8 or 9 minutes. But I cooked mine in the husk and shocked the ears briefly in a sink full of cold water before cutting off the cobb. Mixed in the usual add ons...cant wait to pick up some more tomorrow.

Any vegetable you like steamed or boiled works well in the microwave. It doesn't give you the Maillard reaction, caramelization and toasty flavors you get from roasting, though for long-cooking items you can get some of that by adding fat.

Like JoelF, I use the microwave for steamed redskin or white potatoes, and I also use leek's method of par-cooking baking potatoes before finishing them in the toaster oven. If you start with small white potatoes or potato chunks, micro-steam them to almost tender, then roll them around in oil and a lot of paprika and nuke them some more you can create a decent approximation of oven-roasted spuds (shortcut this process even more by starting with canned potatoes).

It's also a good way to make German potato salad.

I prefer roasted corn over steamed or boiled, so I'm not fond of the microwave for corn on the cob (also, I find that given the inside-out way microwaves work, the cobs get way too hot before the corn itself cooks, making the finished corn hard to handle).

The microwave is also great for:

• Bacon
• Poached eggs
• Seafood
• Fruit
• Risotto
• Sweet potatoes
• Squash
• Popcorn
• White sauce and cheese sauce

I have also pot-roasted brisket in the microwave (adapted from the recipe in Barbara Kafka's Microwave Gourmet, a book I highly recommend to anyone who wants to use a microwave as more than a reheating device). It works well, but like most brisket recipes, tastes better the next day. So it's not a time saver, though it does avoid heating up the kitchen, in case you crave braised brisket in the summer.

Hi,

I roasted beets in the oven, then peeled them. I randomly tasted two beets to find them bitter. I found information on University of California-Davis website advising undercooked beets taste bitter. This article characterized beet cooking as a bit tricky because of this.

I never experienced this before and don't recall anyone commenting.

Regards,

JoelF wrote:You can microwave a potato, so long as you aren't expecting a crisp-skinned, creamy centered baked potato. If you want steamed potato pieces, it's just fine..

One way around the this is to microwave the potato for five minutes or so and them finish ikt off in the oven. It cuts the cooking time in half or more and is a decent product.