New Appliance: Table-top Convection Oven

Why yes that IS a hole in my kitchen wall.
Thanks for noticing.

For Christmas this year, I asked for a table-top convection oven on my amazon gift list, not expecting anyone to actually get it. (I thought instead that I'd get the counter-top compost bin thingy that was much cheaper.  Mom decided to go big though.)

Now I have to figure out how to use the thing.  Basically, it is a big glass dish with a heating element built into the lid.  The heating element also includes a fan that blows the hot air all around the food, which is how the food cooks (1) quickly and (2) evenly. A friend whose parents own a chain of restaurants swears by her large, professional style convection oven and her family put them in when they upgraded their fancy-schmancy jealousy-inducing condo in Waikiki.

I tried to look up recipes online and didn't find much that was geared toward the table-top style convection oven.  I tried to look up recipe books, but didn't see any geared specifically to the table-top size.  So instead, I'm learning through trial and error (but I should probably also use this calculator next time).

I started simple - a boneless turkey breast/hunk of turkey meat from Butterball.  I just popped it in on the low rack, set the heat at 350 and set the timer for 60 minutes.  (The timer only goes to 60; the best I could come up with was to expect it to take 90 minutes.)  I hadn't fully defrosted the meat, but I had used the cold-water-in-the-sink method for an hour, so it wasn't solid frozen either.

Something was off with the timer - it dinged at 25 minutes and when I asked the husband to reset it for 30 more minutes, something was off and it ended up being turned off instead - so it cooked for 35 minutes, sat for 15 minutes, then cooked for another 40ish minutes.  I used a meat thermometer to check for doneness (175-180 degrees F is just about right) and pulled it out.  It had a crispy skin and the meat was to-die-for yummy.  However, with no real drippings, the gravy was a disaster. Fortunately, the meat was done just right and so moist that gravy was completely unnecessary.

I also tried to roast some veggies - did carrots in the regular oven as a backup in case the c.oven didn't work - by just throwing some broccoli on the bottom rack at the 350 degree F setting.  The recipe I saw online said 40 minutes in the regular oven, so I set the timer for 20 in the c.oven.  And that was probably 10 minutes too long.  Or I shouldn't have put them on the bottom rack, but used the top one.  Or something.  Because, while it may be verrrrry hard to burn something in a c.oven, it is possible to dry the ever-livin' crap out of it.  The carrots were good though.

Next, M suggested putting a steak on the top rack and some veggies on the bottom...I'm not sure if that will work since the veggies will cook in no time at all.  But we need to try some type of beef next.  Hopefully, I'll have a chance to scour the interwebs more thoroughly and get some ideas of recipes for this table-top c.oven.  And, though we're both watching our calorie-consumption right now, I want to figure out the baking situation too.

**HAHAHA - I wrote this post and a few others all in one setting and had them set to publish one each day.  And I couldn't figure out why they weren't there.  Turns out, I set it to publish January 3, 2010.  Oops.