David Chang, my microwave and I

"How I learned to stop worrying about recipes and love my microwave." David Chang

I'm returning to my kitchen tour and at the same time trying to say a few things about one of the books sitting on my pile. Not exactly a review - just a few words.

Above is my microwave in situ, that cleverly looks as if it is really built in, although its actually just sitting on a shelf with a manufacturer supplied surround to hide that fact. It's not a very classy one - a fairly basic Smeg that seemed to do the job when it was bought - actually rather a long time ago and it's still going strong.

This is the book that I bought a while ago now - possibly at the end of the COVID era when a whole lot of excellent cookbooks, often centred on the home, comfort and nostalgia came out. It is a very heavy (literally) tome and in fact sprinkled here and there throughout the book are some reasonably 'heavy' essays on subjects such as - well the safety of microwaves for one - but also How to properly freeze food; Making flatbread according to science ... if you get the drift. In many ways it's a curious mix between the teacherly and scientific approach to cooking and a very offhand approach to cooking actual dishes.

David Chang is the owner/founder of the Momofuku chain of restaurants, and an American celebrity chef, prone to popping up here and there - in Apple TV's Loot for example. He's a celebrity chef and this book has all the hallmarks of an extrovert. Priya Krishna is the co-writer but it's a bit difficult to actually work out what her role was. From remarks made here and there I would guess that she has basically written it - maybe ghostwritten - but up front as it were - would be a better description. I think the thoughts are David Chang's - even the actual words mostly, but that she has put them into a more readable form. Edited them I suppose. At the back of the book she is described as a food reporter for The New York Times and author of the bestselling cookbook Indian-ish.

I do not like the design of this book. I see what they are trying to do - make some really very teacherly content - the sort of stuff you would learn at a cooking school - attractive by jazzing the design with cute cartoons and colourful pages of text. The trouble is the text is often barely readable - white text on a yellow background, black on a darkish green, orange on purple! and so on - below some random examples to give you a bit of an idea. Apologies - the double page spread I scanned is not complete as my scanner is not big enough, and nobody else has scanned these. It's all somewhat offputting and overwhelming. Dense.

Which is a pity because there is indeed a lot of good stuff in there. The real problem is that he is trying to make cooking wonderful, mostly Asian kind of food, attractive and easy, and yet there is so much good advice in there and presented in such terrible print that you (a) can't absorb it all, and (b) don't really want to battle through it. It's not for those who just want to get to the recipe. And I'm not really one of them, but I found this all very offputting.

Nevertheless there are all manner of little yellow postits sticking out of it - a few for actual recipes - although not so many of those really, but more what I thought might be of interest for a post sometime.

But back to the microwave and me. We got our first microwave way back in the 80s in Adelaide, and in typical style back then bought a top of the range version which could also act as a small oven. I got all enthusiastic about cooking in a microwave, and subscribed to a magazine series for a while on how to do that, but (a) never used that ordinary oven facility - why would I when I had an oven? and (b) never really cooked anything in it.

Over the years however, and a few models later, I would not be without a microwave and do use it as a tool a lot. The following are the most important things - for me - that I do with it:

• I melt chocolate and butter - on a low temperature

• I soften onions and other vegetables in butter for quiches

• I occasionally make small batches of jam - it's cleaner and quicker, and the fruit retains its colour a bit

• Occasionally I puff up poppadoms in there

• If I'm baking potatoes I might give them a five minute burst in the microwave to soften them a bit before finishing them in the oven - well you need the skin to be crisp

• I freshen stale hot cross buns by wrapping them in a piece of kitchen towel and microwaving for about half a minute on a lower heat

• I reheat leftovers like pasta for a quick lunch

I think (my) David warms things up in there sometimes - leftover quiche and so on, which I would never do.

"I will chuck almost anything into a microwave" says David Chang as a subheading to the chapter on Things I Love to Microwave. So what does he think is especially good when cooked in the microwave?

Rice - your basic formula - "For about 2 people, 1 cup of rinsed and drained rice, 2 cups of water, cooked for 15 to 25 minutes uncovered at full power." Why would you do this though if you have a rice cooker, or even if you cook rice properly in a saucepan, because the microwave is no quicker here. Maybe you save on the washing up? Is that a good enough reason. Does it make it fluffier?

Chicken thighs - he says he cooks them in the microwave before then finishing them in a variety of other ways. Which doesn't really save on the washing up so why would you bother?

Fish - well it's a kind of steaming. But then I have a steam oven, and if you wrap your fish in baking paper and aromatics ... before baking - that's sort of steaming.

But I'll stop here because I think you can tell I'm not convinced. Maybe it's because most of the dishes are not to my taste - but also I'm just not convinced. I cannot remember one wonderful new thing I can do with my microwave, and the best recipe that I remember - which I shall write about some other time - did not involve the microwave at all. And I really, really don't like the format. Maybe I'll give it to my daughter-in-law.

As for my own microwave - I would not be without it but apart from the jam - which it does really well if your batch is small - I still don't think I'm going to be using it to cook.

YEARS GONE BY

February 3

2025 - Cabbage and pasta

2024 - Nothing

2023 - The potential of ice cube trays

2022 - Crème fraïche

2021 - Missing

2020 - The miracle of mayonnaise

2019 - Nothing

2018 - Lucky dip - Cooking the Indian Way

2017 - Sriracha - how I discovered I am not cool