Frying in a microwave

maillardmicrowaveoil

So I like to eat a cooked lunch, but my work break room only has a microwave – incapable of producing the Maillard reaction and only good for reheating decaying food into a disgusting, soggy pap.

I understand that oil doesn't warm up in a microwave because the electrons don't resonate at the right frequency, unlike water.

However… a mixture of water and oil would transfer the heat to the oil, right? So all I need do is mix together water and oil in a cup, microwave on full power till all the water is gone and the oil is at 100C, then add my stir fry ingredients.

Has anyone tried this? Will it work?

Best Answer

While creative, this sounds like an especially poor idea, fraught with disaster.

  1. If the water turns into vapor at 100 C, it certainly would not transfer all that heat to the surrounding oil before leaving as steam, so I'd think you would never reach your desired oil temperatures if your goal was 100 C. Plus, as pointed out, in another answer, your food would be in this cold soggy mixture of oil and water until it reached it's maximum possible temperature. And then, once the water is gone, the oil would immediately start losing that peak temperature as it heats the food and gives up it's own energy, with no way to replenish it, except maybe the container getting very, very hot.
  2. If it did heat the oil to a hot enough temperature, and the water wasn't instantly evaporated, which seems physically impossible..... well, what happens when even a droplet of water hits any amount of hot oil? That kind of volume of water and hot oil seems explosively dangerous. Plus, it would make an awful mess out of the microwave, potentially.
  3. If you can get the oil heated to 100 C..... then what? Even a "low" frying temperature is going to be well in excess of 150 C. At 100 C I'd imagine the result would be a soggy, greasy, inedible abomination, not much better than the decaying pap you are trying to avoid.
  4. You're going to deep fry in a microwave at work? Aside from the mess, is your breakroom really set up to manage the waste oil after you are done? This all seems to be somewhat inconsiderate to your co-workers. Wouldn't it be better to re-heat leftovers or made-for microwave meals instead of trying to cook raw foods?
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