Caring for Your Microwave Oven, Cooking Guide

USING YOUR MICROWAVE OVEN

Caring for Your Microwave Oven

To make sure your microwave oven looks good and works well for a long time, you should maintain it properly. For proper care, please follow these instructions carefully.

For interior surfaces: Wash often with warm, sudsy water and a sponge or soft cloth. Use only mild, nonabrasive soaps or a mild detergent. Be sure to keep the areas clean where the door and oven frame touch when closed. Wipe well with clean water. Over time, stains can occur on the surfaces as the result of food particles spattering during cooking. This is normal.

For stubborn soil, boil a cup of water in the oven for 2 or 3 minutes. Steam will soften the soil. To get rid of odors inside the oven, boil a cup of water with lemon juice or vine- gar.

For exterior surfaces and control panel: Use a soft cloth with spray glass cleaner. Apply the spray glass cleaner to the soft cloth; do not spray directly on the oven.

NOTE: Abrasive cleansers, steel-wool pads, gritty wash cloths, some paper towels, etc., can damage the control panel and the interior and exterior oven surfaces.

To clean turntable and turntable support, wash in mild, sudsy water; for heavily soiled areas use a mild cleanser and scouring sponge. The turntable and turntable support are dishwasher-safe.

Cooking

Guide

Microwave cooking tips

Amount of food

•If you increase or decrease the amount of food you prepare, the time it takes to cook that food will also change. For example, if you double a recipe, add a little more than half the original cooking time. Check for doneness and, if neces- sary, add more time in small increments.

Starting temperature of food

•The lower the temperature of the food being put into the microwave oven, the longer it takes to cook. Food at room tem- perature will be reheated more quickly than food at refrigerator temperature.

Composition of food

•Food with a lot of fat and sugar will be heated faster than food containing a lot of water. Fat and sugar will also reach a higher temperature than water in the cooking process.

•The more dense the food, the longer it takes to heat. “Very dense” food like meat takes longer to reheat than lighter, more porous food like sponge cakes.

Size and shape

•Smaller pieces of food will cook faster than larger pieces and same-shaped pieces of food cook more evenly than irregularly shaped foods.

•With unevenly shaped foods, the thinner parts will cook faster than the thicker areas. Place the thinner parts of chicken wings and legs in the center of the dish.

Stirring, turning foods

•Stirring and turning foods distributes heat quickly to the center of the dish and avoids overcooking at the outer edges of the food.