Microwaves are also notorious for simply heating unevenly: you might find a pocket of much hotter lunch in your otherwise lukewarm dish. Heat them together in the oven for about 30-45 seconds. Put water in one and the same amount of oil in another. You can demo this yourself: take two small, identical dishes.
Water molecules, for instance, are much more readily tossed about than fat. But these waves don’t penetrate all parts of your tasty treat equally, either. The microwaves, which are part of the same electromagnetic spectrum as visible light and X-rays, are “tuned” to a frequency that works its magic on the relatively loosely ordered molecules in your food, but that doesn’t have much effect in more solid materials like ceramics and glass. The inside of a magnetron from a microwave, minus its magnet. Or, as all microwave chefs know, giving your treat a stir helps shift the unheated molecules to that all-important outer inch where the action happens. To get the heat deeper than that, you’re relying on conduction, just like in your conventional oven. The catch, which also explains the bubbling-and-freezing-at-the-same-time phenomenon, is that the microwaves only penetrate about an inch or inch and a half into your tasty treat. A microwave oven can do this while using much less energy than the oven requires, and the radio waves quickly get the molecules in motion. These waves, with wavelengths of about 12 cm, bombard the water, fat, and sugar molecules in the food, and set them flip-flopping. Here’s how it works: a hollow-barreled magnetic tube called a magnetron emits radio waves into the oven. If you think about it, this seems kind of weird and maybe a little magical. There’s no hot air in the microwave, and it heats your food without heating anything else. In contrast, a microwave tickles your treat molecules with radio waves. In this conventional oven, the baking bread is surrounded by hot air, which lends it its crispy crust. Eventually, the heat gets conducted all the way to the center of your meal, but it takes a while, which is why you have to leave your tasty treat in the oven for what seems like forever when you’re hungry. Over time, the molecules exposed to the surface transfer their heat energy to the molecules next to them through a process called conduction. When you put your tasty treat inside, the heated air interacts with the cooler surface of your food and moves some of the molecules around.
#Cook magic talking microwave schematic full#
A regular oven, once you’ve preheated it, is full of hot air.
Microwaves and regular ovens have somewhat different ways of agitating food molecules (though the way they agitate cooks may be similar).