Method of browning food in a microwave oven

A method of cooking and browning food in a microwave oven comprising:

• (a) providing a microwave oven controller having a plurality of predetermined cooking/browning recipes stored in an electronic memory of said microwave oven controller, each recipe having a predetermined food type dependent minimum temperature for browning and optimum surface region moisture level for quickest browning;
• (b) selecting one of said recipes;
• (d) inputting the amount of food to be cooked and the degree of doneness desired into said controller;
• (d) operating said controller automatically according to said selected recipe by:
• i. initially applying microwaves to a food to raise the temperature of the surface of the food to at least a predetermined food type dependent temperature at which significant browning may occur and which approaches the value of water activity for which maximum browning rate occurs for that food type;
• ii. applying power to an infrared heater whose radiation irradiates said food to reduce water content of the surface region of said food toward a predetermined food type dependent level at which the browning reaction is most rapid;
• iii. applying microwaves to further cook said food and provide further supplies of water from an interior region of said food to said surface region to balance that being withdrawn by action of said infrared radiation;
• iv. controlling steps i, ii, and iii to both cook and brown said food at a predetermined rate;
• v. terminating said cooking and browning upon completion of total cooking time as determined by said controller in accord with said selected recipe, said amount of food and said desired doneness.

A method of utilizing a microwave oven to minimize total cooking time required to obtain the desired degree of internal doneness and external surface browning for each of a plurality of food types comprising:

• (a) developing a set of parameters for an individual food type to arrive at the desired degree of internal doneness and external browning in a minimum time by empirically determining the amount and rate of:
• i. microwaves needed to obtain desired internal doneness while increasing water activity, and
• ii. increased infrared radiation needed to increase rate of evaporation of water at the surface of said food type and to contribute to the activation energy required for desired browning;
• (b) repeating step (a) for a plurality of individual food types;
• (c) storing said developed sets of parameters in an electronic memory of a microwave oven controller;
• (d) selecting one of said stored parameter sets;
• (e) inputting a numerical value corresponding to the mass of food to be cooked;
• (f) operating said controller according to said selected parameter set by alternately applying said increased amount of infrared radiation from an infrared heater and microwaves in accord with said selected parameter set;
• and
• (g) terminating step (f) upon completion of a total cooking time in accord with said selected parameter set, and said inputted numerical value.