Hello friends, at home we all have the traditional oven recessed or integrated in the gas kitchen, but when we have to cook small quantities or we hurry and we want a quick cooking to avoid turning on the traditional oven, it is better to rely on the ovens. There are many on the market and with different functions and made different, I will try to explain the differences based on my experience gained by using them all:
Microwave: Basically serves only to warm the dishes rather than milk or tea in the morning and thaw foods; But without other functions alone does not allow you to complete a cooking from start to finish, because you do not have the opportunity to gild the foods. In A nutshell you will use little and therefore, if your needs are limited to this, you should take a small size.
Microwave and Grill: In addition to the basic functions of the microwave, it allows to trigger the food and therefore can be used for some dishes for which you want to shorten the preparation times but for which we do not risk that, by cooking, are too dry, and dry. First courses and second courses very humid, baked pasta or gateaux, baked chicken etc… Almost all models include the function “Crisp” (patented by Whirlpool, and for this reason each brand will use a different name) that allows to obtain a lower browning of the dish through the special dish, a top browning of the dish with the grill and The Cotturadelle dishes with microwaves. The CRISP function is handled by the oven itself automatically, it is not necessary to set the temperature. I recommend a furnace of at least 24 L to allow the use of medium baking pans, strictly Pyrex baking pans unique material suitable for microwave cooking.
Combined Oven: It is a microwave with grill and ventilated oven suitable for all preparations, which allows you to combine the microwave with a ventilated oven to shorten the cooking times and the grill function to have golden and crispy food. Of course, each single function can be used individually or in pairs (microwaves + grill-ventilated + microwaves). Very versatile allows you to replace the traditional oven with a yield in terms of result and cooking times really unbeatable. You can use all types of baking trays But if you use the microwave function you always need to use Pyrex glass.
In any case I do not recommend the use of these ovens to cook sweets… always better to use the good old and traditional static oven.
According to the needs different solutions, made different and obviously different prices. There are many on the market but for a combined oven (the most expensive) I recommend to entrust you to reliable companies with a capillary assistance just in case.