Defrosting 'ready meal' in fridge - how long?

[Midsmartin]

I'd get a combination oven that also has a conventional oven built in. They usually have settings that operate at say 150 degrees with lowish microwave power as well. This allows you to cook a pie (for example) from frozen in a reasonable time and it still comes out without the pastry being soggy. Or you can do baked potatoes in half an hour. These things are lazy, but fantastic on a school/work day when time is very short.

[bungeejumper]

They're cheap to buy... good for veg al dente... and ready meals I suppose although we've never had one... will run off a 13amp socket... do recommend you try.

Pretty good with fish, too, since they essentially steam it. The turntable decision is usually down to size - they're a couple of inches bigger because they have to handle the maximum dish length through 360 degrees.

Agree with you on being cautious with seafood. Raddled with e coli before it's even out of the sea, and then eaten warm. But frozen prawns do have a special off-topic use. They tell me that one of the worst-ever "I'm leaving you, you bastard" exit tactics is to surreptitiously stuff the tubular curtain poles with the things, and then screw the caps back on, and then make your exit. It'll be a month before the leavee tracks down where the terrible smell is coming from.

BJ ("educate and amuse", innit?)

[AleisterCrowley]

I have to say, if you're gonna play Russian roulette by slowly defrosting frozen food instead of using a microwave, seafood is the least safe food to do it with. Prawns and crab in particular, according to my ex who tends to be right about stuff like this.

Surely a man of your calibration can afford to buy himself a whole new Thai Prawn Curry instead of mucking about with an old one?

Or a microwave, even!

I don't like wasting food- and it's not like I'm doing something 'unusual' with it. It says on the packaging that it can be frozen before use by date.
Some chilled meals have 'from frozen' cooking instructions - usually an extra 15 minutes or so - but in this case it just says defrost thoroughly.

I can afford a microwave from 'pocket change' , and had one in my old place, but decided against getting one here as it was making me a bit lazy. I do still buy the occasional ready meal and do them in the oven. Plus there's the space - I have a reasonably large kitchen area but the only clear space is to the left of my stove top (gas) and I use this for charging various bits of tech. Small microwaves are a pain, and a larger one may be too close to the gas rings. And one more thing, having bought cheap ones they rust on the inside quickly (all the condensation) so I'd go for a more robust one.

[Breelander]

The problem with a turntable is that if I put a jug with a handle in the microwave, the jug handle ALWAYS ends up furthest away from me...

The microwave turntable uses a synchronous motor, its rotation speed is tied to the AC mains frequency. On all microwaves I have seen, cooking for any multiple of one minute will return the turntable to the orientation it started at. A time of any number of minutes plus 30 seconds will end up rotated by 180 degrees. I use that knowledge to choose where to put the handle so that it ends up front and centre at the end of cooking.

An added complication is that the synchronous motor can work equally well in either direction of rotation. Whenever you stop it part way through (do you open the door to see how it's doing?) then it invariably rotates in the opposite direction when it restarts.

[AleisterCrowley]

Possible new feature for microwave manufacturers -
New HandleSmart(TM) - returns the turntable to the starting position, regardless of cooking time

[AleisterCrowley]

I'm claiming Intellectual property rights for the above, by the way. Just in case Samsung or Panasonic are reading...

[Mike4]

I'm claiming Intellectual property rights for the above, by the way. Just in case Samsung or Panasonic are reading...

Too late, I've just sold the idea to Alan Sugar for £3.60.

[88V8]

The Miele freestandng is not over-large https://ao.com/product/m6012-miele-micr ... 24-50.aspx and is stainless.
We had a s/h example about 10 yo when acquired, which lasted six years even though the delivery courier dropped it and bent the chassis - as I discovered too late - until something internal went phutt and started smoking. Easy to use... it has knobs... and a turntable.

Now we have a ... errm... which is larger and more complicated, from which I abstain. I much prefer knobs.

V8

[AleisterCrowley]

My mum has a Panasonic microwave - I'm pretty sure she bought it before I left home pemanently...so 28 years ago?! Still works OK

[Mike4]

It occurs to me that microwaves share something with the internet, in that there are people around now, too young to remember a time before they became a ubiquitous part of our lives. Back in the 50s, 60s, 70s and possibly the 80s, I can remember both microwaves and the internet simply not existing.

I would imagine the principle has been known about since the 19th century but something happened or some industrial process was developed in the late 1980s (IIRC) to make them cheap enough to make and sell as consumer goods. I'm gonna hafter have a goggle now to see what it was...


(Edit to make a sentence make sense. Twice!)

[csearle]

Possible new feature for microwave manufacturers -
New HandleSmart(TM) - returns the turntable to the starting position, regardless of cooking time

You are going to have to think of another name, or sell the idea to this lot. C.

[Alaric]

I would imagine the principle has been known about since the 19th century but something happened or some industrial process was developed in the late 1980s (IIRC) to make them cheap enough to make and sell as consumer goods.

I believe they were available, if not that common, in 1980. Nothing fancy, just cook/defrost and a timer. Pricier and more sophisticated late 1980s models can be indestructible. We have a Panasonic Dimension 4 from 1988 still going strong.

[AleisterCrowley]

It occurs to me that microwaves share something with the internet, in that there are people around now, too young to remember a time before they became a ubiquitous part of our lives. Back in the 50s, 60s, 70s and possibly the 80s, I can remember both microwaves and the internet simply not existing.

I would imagine the principle has been known about since the 19th century but something happened or some industrial process was developed in the late 1980s (IIRC) to make them cheap enough to make and sell as consumer goods. I'm gonna hafter have a goggle now to see what it was...


(Edit to make a sentence make sense. Twice!)

This is just a guess, but high power microwave generation was something that came out of Radar development in WW2

[Alaric]

This is just a guess, but high power microwave generation was something that came out of Radar development in WW2

Isn't there a story that someone left a cup of liquid in range of one of the devices and found that it heated up?

Here's wiki's take
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven

The development of the cavity magnetron in the UK made possible the production of electromagnetic waves of a small enough wavelength (microwaves). American engineer Percy Spencer is generally credited with inventing the modern microwave oven after World War II from radar technology developed during the war. Named the "Radarange", it was first sold in 1946.

Raytheon later licensed its patents for a home-use microwave oven that was introduced by Tappan in 1955, but it was still too large and expensive for general home use. Sharp Corporation introduced the first microwave oven with a turntable between 1964 and 1966. The countertop microwave oven was introduced in 1967 by the Amana Corporation. After microwave ovens became affordable for residential use in the late 1970s, their use spread into commercial and residential kitchens around the world.

[ReformedCharacter]

This is just a guess, but high power microwave generation was something that came out of Radar development in WW2

I used to know someone who worked on radar in WW2, he told me that they were very useful for heating meat pies.

RC