When the first of the summer heatwaves arrives, we tend to change both our cooking and eating habits, opting for fresher and lighter dishes. Let's take a look at a few simple and quick summer recipes that make use of the microwave, thereby avoiding the heat produced by traditional ovens.
Here’s our pick of three quick and cost-effective summer recipes for both sweet and savoury dishes, cooked exclusively in the microwave. Very few people actually make full use of the potential offered by this kitchen appliance, with most of us simply using it, out of habit, to re-heat food.
The microwave can instead cook food in very little time and ensure a more uniform cooking result. Of course, your choice of appliance makes a difference: in the Candy microwave section, you’ll find the best models, alongside their technical data sheets, to enable you to choose the option most suited to your needs.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of tasty summer recipes:
- Quiche;
- Sea bream and potatoes;
- Yoghurt cake.
Microwave quiche
For this quiche, you’ll be able to choose your preferred filling. Generally speaking, we recommend pairing vegetables with cold cuts and cheese.
The classic version includes finely-sliced courgettes, asiago cheese and ham, but you could also decide to opt for a radicchio cream with grana cheese and bresaola or even aubergines, smoked scamorza and speck. You could also go full-out vegetarian, choosing to fill your quiche with peppers, walnuts and gorgonzola.
Ingredients:
- Shortcrust pastry;
- Filling of your choice.
Method:
- Start by preparing your filling. If you choose to cook your vegetables in the microwave, alongside the cheese and cold cuts, we recommend finely slicing them lengthways. If instead you’ve opted for a quiche with a vegetable cream filling, you’ll need to prepare this beforehand: cut the chosen vegetables into chunks, boil and cream using a blender.
- Unroll the shortcrust pastry without removing it from its baking paper base and place it in a microwavable dish.
- Use a fork to prick the pastry base and add your chosen filling: start with the cold cuts, before layering with the finely sliced or creamed vegetables and finishing with a good sprinkling of diced cheese.
- Bake in the microwave using the Cook Light programme for 15 minutes. Then, switch off the microwave and allow your quiche to rest for 5 minutes before serving.
Sea bream and potatoes
Sea bream and potatoes is a quick and tasty summer recipe. Sea bream is a lean white fish, rich in vitamins, phosphorous, iodine, iron and calcium, and is commonly found in European waters. Let’s take a look at how we can conveniently cook this fish in the microwave, thereby avoiding the heat produced by the oven.
Ingredients:
- one sea bream of approx. 500 g;
- 2 medium-sized potatoes;
- 10 ripe cherry tomatoes;
- 1 garlic clove;
- 1 tablespoon capers (salted or pickled);
- black olives to taste;
- parsley to taste;
- 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil;
- salt to taste.
Method:
- Wash, peel and finely slice the potatoes before placing them on a sheet of microwave-safe baking paper, which will be used to make the cartouche. Add a drizzle of oil and a pinch of salt. Be sure to remember that sea bream, despite its delicate flavour, is naturally quite salty; we therefore recommend using very little salt during the cooking process and adding an additional pinch at a later stage depending on personal tastes.
- Prepare and gut the sea bream, wash for a few seconds under running water and pat dry with kitchen towel.
- Now, the time has come to prepare the other ingredients that will add flavour to your dish: wash and slice the cherry tomatoes and chop the parsley; peel the garlic, halving and removing the core, and desalt the capers.
- Stuff the belly of the sea bream with the clove of garlic, a few cherry tomatoes and a pinch of capers. Then, place the fish on the bed of potatoes.
- Add the remaining cherry tomatoes, capers, chopped parsley and olives, and season with a drizzle of oil and a dash of salt. Seal the cartouche and place in a microwave-safe baking dish.
- Bake in the microwave at 750 watts for 10 minutes. Leave to rest for a few minutes before opening the cartouche and serving. We recommend serving the vegetables alongside the fish, so that it is easier to remove the skin and any bones.
Microwave yoghurt cake
Yoghurt cake is a simple and tasty recipe. Perfect for breakfast during the summer or for the kids’ snack, the softness of this cake makes up for its lack of rise. Here’s how to make it in the microwave.
Ingredients:
- 100 g ‘00’ flour;
- 50 g rice flour;
- 150 g vanilla icing sugar;
- 80 g whole white yoghurt;
- 25 g extra-virgin olive oil;
- 2 g baking powder;
- 2 eggs.
Method:
- Grease the tin with a drop of oil and place to one side.
- Beat the eggs and sugar together until light and creamy. Now, add the oil and yoghurt and blend until smooth.
- In a bowl, combine the rice flour, ‘00’ flour and baking powder.
- Add the flour blend to the creamy mixture, taking care to sieve this well to prevent the formation of lumps. When the cream is both thick and smooth, pour into the previously greased tin.
- Bake in the microwave for 6 minutes selecting the Cook Light function, before cooking for a further 3 minutes at 350 watts. As a precaution, we suggest using a skewer to check if the cake is cooked towards the end of the recommend baking time; if not, continue to cook, checking on its progress at one-minute intervals. The skewer should come out clean and dry.
- Once cooked, allow the cake to cool before turning out onto a plate.
