Infrazapping in your kitchen

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Infrared radiation cooks fast, up to 50% faster than flame. That’s why the jazzier barbecues have long featured gas-fired infrared heating elements, and why a lot of restaurants have electric infrared grills. But for the home kitchen, infrared has so far been concentrated in either super-pricey high-end equipment or gimmicky as-seen-on-TV gadgets. Black & Decker is positioning its new InfraWave Countertop Oven in the middle of this gap.

For convenience and space-age aura, the InfraWave includes scores of programmed food settings. I decided to take this baby out on the road and see what it could do, so I tried cooking a hot dog, a potato, a rising-crust pizza and a whole chicken. For most of them, I can report that the InfraWave did cook much faster than a regular oven. It’s sort of like a microwave that can brown food.

But those programmed settings were flaky. The potato took 40 minutes, five minutes longer than the setting (but hey, still 30% less than it would have taken in a conventional oven), while the pizza and the hot dog cooked faster than their settings -- 6 and 11 minutes, respectively, though the settings were 12 and 15. Go figure. The chicken was supposed to take 40 minutes but still wasn’t done at 75.

Long story short: It cooks impressively fast, but don’t blindly trust those settings, and I get the feeling you basically shouldn’t try anything as big as a whole chicken. But enjoy the hot dogs -- it’s terrific on dogs.

Black & Decker InfraWave Countertop Oven, $119.99-$149.99 at Bed Bath & Beyond, Target and Wal-Mart stores and at various Internet shopping sites.

-- Charles Perry