Micro/Convection Oven techniques---how you cooking?

[wopachop]

My trailer came with a microwave that also has an electric heating element to act as the oven. It has a microwave setting, grill setting, and convection setting. You can also do combo micro/grill or micro/convection.

Im thinking other campers might have a similar microwave?

The electric element is at the top. So its hard to get something like a frozen pizza to crisp up the bottom of the crust. I usually use a large pan on the propane stove and cover it with a top to create a mini oven. That works extremely well for 1 or 2 people that are not in a rush to eat. I think it makes food taste better. Even a cheeseburger from 2 days ago will heat up so nice and lovely in a covered skillet set to low. Ends up tasting better than fresh. At least for my taste buds.

Back to the micro/convection oven, anyone have tips? Ive used pyrex containers with success. The glass gets hot as you would expect and helps cook the food from below. But thats just me cooking a single hot dog. Not trying to feed a family.

Isnt the micro/convection oven similar to an "air fryer"? Curious how other people are getting the maximum potential out of these little micro/convection units.

[DrewE]

If you aren't using a microwave mode, but a straight grill or convection mode, there's no reason the thermometer needs to be microwave safe. Same with the baking pans, etc. for that matter.

(Kind of similarly, if you aren't using the heated dry setting, you can wash "top shelf only" stuff on either shelf of a dishwasher.)

[wopachop]

Hey thanks for the replies. Need to get one of those little shelves to raise the food up.

I have the sunbeam sb-22202 and the manual here. I swear about 4 months ago i read through the manual to learn how to operate the different features. There are 10 temp settings for the convection mode that range from 230-390F.

Now i thought the manual told me the grill setting was around 340F. But i cant seem to find that info again. Even searching the sunbeam website wont bring up my model. Maybe i had 2 different instruction manuals. Or maybe it was a dream.

One thing i noticed was convection mode allows for 9 hours of cook time. While grill only allows for 1.5 hours. So it makes me think the grill setting gets hotter. Even though i would bet money i read the grill setting is locked to a temp that is lower than the max 390f. I keep thinking i saw grill was locked at 340f.

An oven thermometer would help answer. The manual talks about a microwave safe oven thermometer. Thats a quick amazon search away.

Do you guys/gals remember that old infomercial with Chef Tony who was selling a microwave safe type of foil you wrap food with to get crispy crust? Similar to the old metal jacket hot pockets came in. Its been awhile but i think they might have ditched the metal pocket.

Wonder if that stuff was found to cause cancer. Again.....suppose its a quick search away. Writing here because its fun to chat with other humans and hear what they have to say.

[Shearwater]

We have a small Breville toaster oven in our RV. It works great for baking (you set time and temperature) and toasting (you set darkness setting and number of slices) and many other functions. The only drawback is price - the simplest model is $180. Other models with convection, pizza, or air fryer functions can run the price up to $350 but you get what you pay for.
We liked ours enough to buy a second larger model for home use and use it more than our regular oven. They are widely available and can be ordered from Amazon.

[Campinghoss]

We have both a wire shelf and a round shelf on legs that work well in ours. We can put biscuits on the round shelf and by it rotating during convection cooking we get both top and bottoms brown. We don't use the shelf rack that much.

[DrewE]

I think an air fryer uses hotter air and possibly more velocity than most convection ovens. I'm not sure on that.

A proper convection oven is basically just a normal oven with a fan to circulate the air around inside. It sounds like your microwave/convection oven combo is not a very good convection oven at all, but perhaps more akin to a broiler with a fan. Cooking in a normal convection oven is pretty much like cooking in a plain oven, just somewhat quicker (or needing a bit lower temperature) and generally more even.

I have a nice broiler pan for my home oven that has a cast iron grid; preheating it allows for it to put some grill mark lines on whatever is being broiled, which they claim makes it taste better though I'm not really convinced about that. Maybe something akin to that, or a plain cast iron griddle/frypan preheated, would help in your convection oven. Obviously it's not appropriate for any of the microwave settings, being a big metal object.

[Thunder_Mountai]

In addition to the microwave, we have a counter top toaster/convection oven and a Nuwave stand alone induction. I also converted the three burner gas stove to a two place induction cook top. The stand alone induction allows us to cook messy stuff like bacon or as smelly food such as fish outside. We don't like the convection function on the microwave hence the counter top convection. Oh yes, almost forgot the outside gas grill and the instant pot.