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Everybody who has used a microwave knows how practical and efficient they are in so many areas. They are speedy and energy-efficient. But they are not ideal in every situation – now and then you want the crispy skin that a microwave cannot supply.

With a combination oven, you have the ability to take advantage of the speed and you get from microwave, along with regular heat to give you the flavour and texture that only comes from radiant heat.

A high-quality oven will let you blend the different cooking techniques – regular oven, grill and microwave – yourself, or (and here is where their secret lies) do it all for you by using their built-in programming and routines. All you have to do is select the program, tell the oven the weight of your food and start it off.

The adaptability is such that people report being able to cook a complete roast meal with roast potatoes and save hours, to say nothing of the washing up, owing to the blend of microwave and heat.

Obviously, these appliances can always be used in single-function mode- microwave, grill or conventional oven. So what are the functions generally found on a good combination oven?

1. Defrost. There’s usually the option to use a built-in program to make this easy.

2. Microwave. The oven can be controlled as normal by keying in the time and power level. Cooks with normal microwave power.

3. Grill. The grill usually has just one setting, but there are different heights of rack that you can use. You have the option to set the time.

4. Conventional Oven. Time and temperature can be set as normal, and the oven uses normal thermal cooking.

5. Dual Cooking. the grill, oven and microwave combine to cook the food all the way through and give colour and texture to the outside.

6. Automatic Cooking. A feature often found on the finest ovens is a range of cooking programs to cater for commonly-used dishes – ready meals, roast meats, cake etc. The procedure is simple – put in the type of food and its weight, and press the start button.

So you can see that there’s quite a powerful range of functions built into a decent combination oven, so there’s quite a good deal to learn.

To take advantage of what these powerful appliances can do, it’s as well to point out that a lttle bit of time will be required to appreciate all the functions. But on a decent oven, the controls are not that difficult to understand, so the process shouldn’t take too long.

So these ovens give you the ability to save time in your cooking – and save you money on electricity too. Many users have said that they no longer need their main oven at all – combination ovens may be the future!