Adding Water, Food with Skin or Peel, Fatty Foods

TIPS & ADVICE

CHART: USING A FOOD THERMOMETER

TO DEFINE COOKING TIMES

Drink/food items	Internal	Internal
	temperature at	temperature after
	the end of	10-15 mins
	cooking time	standing time

Heating drinks (coffee,	65-75oC
water, tea, etc)
Heating milk	75-80oC
Heating soup	75-80oC
Heating stews	75-80oC	85-90oC
Poultry	80-85oC	85-90oC
Lamb		70-75oC
Rare	70o C	70-75oC
Well roasted	75-80oC	80-85oC
Roast beef		55-60oC
Rare	50-55oC	55-60oC
Medium done	60-65oC	65-70oC
Well done	75-80oC	80-85oC
Pork, veal	80-85oC	80-85oC

ADDING WATER

Vegetables and other foods containing a lot of water can be cooked in their own juices or by adding just a small amount of water. This will retain many vitamins and minerals in the food.

FOOD WITH SKIN OR PEEL

Pierce foods such as sausages, chickens, chicken legs, potatoes in their skins, tomatoes, egg yolk, etc with a wooden skewer. This allows the steam to escape and the food won’t explode.

FATTY FOODS

Food ‘marbled’ with fat or with layers of fat cook faster than lean meat. You should therefore cover these parts with some aluminium foil, and place the food fatty side downward.

BLANCHING VEGETABLES

Before they are frozen vegetables should be blanched. This is the best way of retaining the quality and flavour.

How to blanch vegetables:

Wash and chop the vegetable, place 250g of the vegetable in a bowl with 275ml of water, cover and heat for 3-5 minutes.

Plunge into cold water immediately after the

blanching process to prevent further cooking, and then allow it to drain. Pack and freeze the vegetable in airtight containers.

PRESERVING FRUIT AND VEGETABLES

Preserving fruit and vegetables using the microwave is a quick and easy process. You can buy preser ving jars, seals and preserving jar clamps specially

designed for microwave use. Precise instructions are provided by the manufacturers of these items.

SMALL AND LARGE QUANTITIES

Microwave cooking times depend directly upon the amount of food you want to defrost, re-heat or cook, i.e. small portions cook faster than big ones.

The rule of thumb is:

TWICE AS MUCH = ALMOST TWICE AS LONG HALF AS MUCH = HALF AS LONG

TALL CONTAINERS, FLAT DISHES

Both types of container have the same capacity but cooking times are longer for tall containers than for flat ones. Therefore it is preferable to use dishes that are as flat as possible, with the

largest possible flat surface. Only use tall containers for foods that are likely to boil over, e.g.

noodles, rice, milk etc.

ROUND AND OVAL DISHES

Food cooks more evenly in round and oval dishes than in rectangular ones, because the microwave energy concentrates into the corners of rectangular dishes and the food there may get overcooked.