Following factors need consideration while purchasing a microwave:
- Lifestyle and eating habits
- Cooking preferences
- Functionality of the oven
LIFESTYLE AND EATING HABITS
A choice between solo or convection microwave surely depends upon your lifestyle and eating habits. To elaborate further, if you are a bachelor who eats out most of the time or orders food from restaurants, it implies that elaborate cooking does not apply to you. Under such circumstances, a solo microwave will fulfill the requirements of re-heating the food. It will also help defrost frozen foods and assist in making simple cup of tea or coffee.
Similarly, even some families or working couples find it difficult to cook elaborate meals or just not fond of it. In this case, solo microwave is good enough to cook simple meals or re-heat pre-cooked meals. The ones who like to cook and bake as well as entertain guests with some barbeque should opt for convection microwave. This is all in one unit that will facilitate, cooking, grilling and baking.
COOKING PREFERENCES
If you are not much in baking or grilling, then solo microwave is sufficient to help cook food and heat up cold food. Remember, in a solo microwave oven you can use only micro-safe cookware made from food grade plastic or glass. Microwave oven does not permit use of metal utensils, as it is hazardous. There should be no trace of any metallic element on the utensils, even as rimmed design.
As far as convection microwave is concerned, apart from microwave cooking, you can use metal containers in grill and convection mode. If you have children who enjoy baked goodies or you entertain guests often, then convection microwave is the right option for you. It can make yummy pizzas, cakes, breads and other baked items. The grilling mode is ideal to make kebabs and other barbequed foods. It helps to grill your pasta and other dishes that needs just top melting of cheeses and other stuff.
FUNCTIONALITY OF THE OVEN
While selecting any microwave, solo or convection, ensure that there are good numbers of cooking modes pre-installed. This assists faster cooking, without having to figure out the cooking time for each dish. Many microwaves have pre-set timers for items like popcorn, defrosting (as per weight of items), gravies and cafeteria, so on. The core size of the oven also helps to decide whether it can take care of your cooking needs as per the family size. For a large family, we recommend to have at least 30+ inches oven. For a single person or small family, 20+ is sufficient. A minimum gradation of 10 seconds is ideal for quick warming. Pre-set timer of 30 seconds is usually prevalent in quick heat mode.
As far as solo microwave is concerned, combination cooking is not applicable. However, convection microwave has combo-cooking options like micro + grill or micro + convection. This facilitates use of multiple cooking methods simultaneously to finish the product in faster time. Solo microwave may serve the purpose of basic cooking, beverage making and food warming. Whereas, the convection is versatile enough to give multiple benefits of cook, grill and bake.
CONCLUSION
Microwaves have become indispensable in modern life as they help in minimizing time and effort as far as cooking is concerned. Whether you opt for solo or convection model, it eases the burden of lengthy cooking process and assists in quick cooking, without having to monitor the process constantly. By following the cooking instructions from the manual, one can cook tasty meals in no time with pre-set timing that turns off automatically after the duration is over and allows you to relax without having the tension of overcooking or burning the food.
Solo models are advisable for people with basic cooking needs, bachelors and small families. Convection microwave, however, is ideal choice for big families and frequent entertainers. Before purchasing the microwave, it is essential to understand your requirements and in which category you fall in. Mind you, it is a choice between simple cooking / heating or elaborate cooking and baking. Make the right choice, since solo and convection are priced differently and solo are always cheaper option.
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