Microwave oven - a necessity in the kitchen

In more recent times, I have discovered more and more uses for our microwave oven.

In the past, I would steam the pau, siew mai and har gao that you see in the photograph below. This takes time and you need to watch that the water does not dry up. Nowadays, I heat up such food in the microwave oven - fast and easy!

Recently, I learned from my mother that you can use the microwave oven to warm up your bread buns too! In the old days, I would warm up the bread buns in our convection oven. Nowadays, if I am warming up one bread bun, I would microwave the bun on HIGH for 20 seconds. To warm up two bread buns at one go would require 30 seconds. In case you are wondering, the bread bun is very soft when you remove it from the microwave oven.

If I were to eat, say, a slice of chicken pie and some dim sum like what you see in the photograph below, in the past I would warm up the chicken pie in our convection oven and steam the dim sum over the stove top. This meant double washing of kitchen appliances/utensils. Nowadays, I place all these ingredients on a plate and microwave them at one go.

Last but not least, thanks to AJ (my mother's second sister), I now heat up my hot drink which has cooled down by microwaving it on HIGH for 1 minute.

In case you are wondering, can you "bake" a cake in the microwave oven? Yes, you can. For the 5-minute chocolate cake recipe that I obtained from JT (sister of my friend, SC), please click here.