Convection oven cooking?

Help! I've got a new convection oven, and I don't know what to do with it." I hear this plea a lot from cooks who have just redone their kitchens, and also from people who are intrigued about convection cooking but aren't sure what the big deal is. The answer is simple: You can cook just about anything in a convection oven, and while learning to use one certainly isn't a big deal, the results you get -- evenly cooked cookies, crisp pastry, and juicy, well-browned meats -- are.

To get comfortable with a convection oven, you just have to start using it. The easiest way to do this is to experiment with your favorite recipes by cooking them at a slightly lower temperature and for a slightly shorter time than you normally would (see Guidelines for using convection). But before you do that, or before you follow through with your plans to buy a convection oven, read on to learn how these ovens work, how different models vary, and what kind of results you can expect.

A convection oven circulates hot air with a fan

Unlike conventional radiant (also called thermal) ovens, convection ovens have a fan that continuously circulates air through the oven cavity. When hot air is blowing onto food, as opposed to merely surrounding it, the food tends to cook more quickly. A short version of the scientific explanation for this is that moving air speeds up the rate of heat transference that naturally occurs when air of two different temperatures converges. To help understand this, consider wind chill: When cold air blows against you on a blustery winter day, you feel colder more quickly than you do on a windless day of the same temperature.

This acceleration effect is one reason for the superior results you get from convection. The rush of heat speeds up the chemical reactions that occur when food cooks. The butter in a pie crust or a croissant releases its steam quickly, creating flaky layers. The skin of a roasting chicken renders its fat and browns more quickly, so the meat cooks faster and stays juicier. The sugars in roasting vegetables and potatoes begin caramelizing sooner, creating crisp edges, moist interiors, and deep flavors. Overall, food cooked in a convection oven is usually done about 25% faster than it is in a conventional oven.

Another benefit of all this circulating hot air is more even cooking. In a conventional oven, baking three racks of cookies at the same time is asking for trouble (see The cookie convection test). The cookies on the bottom rack closest to the heating element, as well as those on the top rack where hot air rises, will be overcooked before the cookies on the middle rack are done. Convection cooking, with hot air moving all around the oven, can eliminate hot and cool spots for more even cooking (see the sidebar at right). And when you can bake 50 cookies at once, your oven is operating a lot more efficiently. This even heating feature gives a great boost to roasts, too. For instance, if you roast a turkey in a convection oven, it will brown all over, rather than just on top (roasting the turkey on a rack in a low-sided baking dish or on a rimmed baking sheet helps to encourage this). It will also be done much more quickly.

Not all convection ovens are "true convection"

The extent to which you get these marvelous results depends a lot on the particular convection oven you're using. The best -- and most efficient -- convection ovens blow heated air into the oven cavity. This means they have a third heating element (in addition to the usual top and bottom elements in a radiant oven) located near or around the fan in the back of the oven. This element heats the air to a uniform temperature before it enters the oven cavity. In many ovens, the third heating element is covered by a baffle, or a panel, which channels air sucked in by the fan past the heating element and back out into the oven.

The appliance industry generally calls this type of oven "true convection," "third-element convection," or "European convection" (first popularized in Europe), so these are the terms to look for when shopping. In an effort to distinguish themselves, however, some manufacturers have come up with their own names. Dacor, for instance, calls its technology "Pure Convection" because its third-element convection also uses a special filtering system that prevents odors from being transferred from one item to another cooking in the same oven.

Convection ovens without a third heating element generally cook less evenly. In the worst examples, this type of oven will have a fan mounted on the outside of the oven and will actually blow unheated air into the oven cavity, randomly mixing up hot and cold air. In most of these ovens, though, the fan is mounted on the inside of the oven cavity, but the air blowing around the food won't be a uniform temperature. With the bottom radiant element fully heated, the oven will have hot and cool spots.

You'll find most "true convection" ovens in built-in wall ovens or slide-in ranges, not countertop models. If you're looking for the benefits of convection cooking, you should really upgrade your range or wall ovens rather than buy a countertop convection oven. Full-size ovens generally have better circulation and ventilation, and they may include a filtering system. They're usually self-cleaning, too. If, however, you're short on space and looking for extra oven capacity, a countertop convection oven might be right for you (see Countertop cooking). Some of the better models do have heating elements integrated with the fan.

Wolf Convection Microwave

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The general rule of thumb is if a recipe does not specify convection, but you are going to use convection, lower the temp by 25ºF.

You're also supposed to do this if you use a glass pan. But lowering the temp 50ºF doesn't work, so just stick w/ the 25 adn keep an eye on it.

Your items should rise more evenly, brown evenly, and cook quicker.

There is no obvious reason why microwaved foods should upset your stomach, and you should consult a physician as this may be a symptom of a more serious problem. Microwave-heated foods are perfectly safe if heated in a suitable container: glass or ceramic. Do not use plastic containers -- local heating by the food may damage the container, and debris from the damage may enter the food. Usually such debris is benign, although it may taste bad, but some plastic decomposition products are somewhat toxic.

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