Marco Pierre White may have earned a reputation as the tousle-haired kitchen bad boy who once made Gordon Ramsay cry, but these days he spends his mornings rather more quietly, enjoying his kippers. Yet in his retirement, he can still cause controversy. He recently told a podcast how he cooks his kippers. ‘On a plate, paint it with butter, wrap in cling film, in the microwave, two to two and a half minutes.’ A microwave? Really, Marco?!
Yes. As far as kippers go, his reasoning is spot on. ‘Most people put them under the grill, which intensifies the salt’. Meanwhile, boiling them – jugged kippers – washes away the flavour. In fact, there’s nothing wrong with a microwave. As Marco put it, the haters need to ‘take off the blinkers’. The truth is, for some things, they just work. ‘When we used to cook veal kidney in the fat, we’d start them in the microwave because they’d cook from the inside out,’ Marco said. It’s a similar story for cooking marrowbone and warming up a fish terrine. Melting chocolate without burning it is far easier in a microwave than an elaborate bain-marie. And how else are you meant to soften butter when you make a run to the shops and don’t fancy sitting around waiting before brekkie?
Sometimes you want to therapeutically stir a risotto for an hour while enjoying a glass of wine. At other times, you just want dinner in less than three minutes
Marco has been banging this drum for a while. In 2008, he went to a cabbies’ cafe and told them microwaves were better than a grill for cooking bacon (that’s the real Knowledge). He’s not alone among chefs, either. Even Julia Child admitted to Cosmopolitan in 1990 that she ‘wouldn’t be without’ a microwave, although conceded it lacked the sensory experience of cooking on the stove: ‘I like to smell and feel and poke the food I’m cooking.’ I’m with her on that. Sometimes you want to stir a risotto for an hour while enjoying a glass of wine. It’s therapeutic. At other times, though, you just want dinner in less than three minutes while you peer through the frosted glass impatiently.
In recent years the air fryer has been hogging the limelight in the world of quick and easy appliances, but the meecro-wah-vay (thanks Nigella), which became popular in the UK in the 1970s, has stood the test of time. They don’t seem to have many fans among the green brigade which is ironic as they are, like the air fryer and the pressure cooker, a highly energy efficient way of cooking. The saving on your utility bill means you can upgrade from own-brand to Birds Eye petits pois. A mug of frozen peas at full whack for three minutes (tablespoon of water, knob of butter, salt and pepper) is the best of snacks. Green veggies generally are perfectly suited to microwaving and often retain more of their flavour and nutrients that way. Chef Ben Tish recommends braising ‘green leafy veg [like kale or cavolo nero] in a bowl with a splash of water, lemon juice, salt, pepper, chilli flakes, sliced garlic and a good amount of extra-virgin olive oil. Cover and cook on high until wilted’. When I have a hankering for potatoes and speed is more important than crispiness, I cut them into wedges, dress with olive oil and cajun seasoning and microwave them for ten minutes.
When the likes of Gordon Ramsay dismiss the microwave as a device for ‘lazy cooks’, one suspects the derision is rooted more in purity of technique than a denial of their utility (in the same way some professional chefs baulk at the idea of using a garlic press or a lemon squeezer). But there is simply no point batch cooking and parcelling up the week’s lunches or dinners in Tupperware if you’re going to give yourself a pan to wash up each time you reheat.
The ping of a microwave may not quite be the chime of a church bell but as the sounds of 21st century life go, it’s one of my favourites. Beats the screaming pressure cooker or the iPhone timer ringtone. When the washing machine beeps there’s a task waiting for you. When the microwave goes it means the work is done; there’s something hot and tempting waiting.
And besides, there’s just something wholesome in the fact that a reformed Michelin god, who once crowed to Sue Lawley on Desert Island Discs that his most perfect creation was a tagliatelle of oysters with caviar, now regards perfection as a microwaved kipper. As Marco Pierre White observed (in the first-ever ‘Lunch with the FT’, back in 1994), ‘as a cook gets older his cooking gets simpler’. If even a superstar chef is not above heating up a tin of Baxters in the microwave for dinner, maybe I’m doing OK after all. And that’s a strangely comforting thought.
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