And to be honest, TV dinners comprise too large a part of my diet nowadays. And I try to follow the directions religiously. Uncover the potatoes and apple/cherry dessert; leave the rest of it covered in the plastic with little holes punched on top. Whatever they say.
But why do they ask you to uncover some portions and leave the rest covered? I’ve tried it both ways (completely covered; completely uncovered) and it always comes out the same every way I do it. Is there some subtle culinary experience that I’m getting by keeping part of it covered?
My thought is that the covered parts benefit from steaming more so than the delicious cherry dessert which would benefit from being browned on the top of its flaky, crisp crust.
I’d also W.A.G. that the amount of ventilations is directly proportional to the degree of steaming that occurs. If you vent heavily, a lot of steam will escape, and there won’t be as much cooking.
When next to delve into a t.v. dinner, look at which things “require” full exposure ( as they say in the prepared foods industry ), and which require slight ventilations with poked holes or slits.
Since you’re cooking it all at once, varying the amount of steam/vapor ventilation may be the only method of controlling the heat used for different parts of your meal.
I’m grilling a marinated flank steak, with fresh-cut corn on the cob and salad tonight. Euty, please stop in and bring a friend?
Euty, the real reason is that there’s a certain compound found in frozen cherries and some starchy vegetables that sucks up microwave radiation. This compound, Xzychik-B, is completely odorless and tasteless, but it attracts microwave power like you wouldn’t believe. It does, however, have a very loosely bound molecular image, and if it’s not blocked by, say, plastic wrap, the Xzychik-B will harmlessly dissipate from your meal.
But - if you FORGET to remove the plastic wrap, the Xzychik-B stays bound in your dessert, you end up eating it and thus ingesting huuuuge portions of radiation. If you’ve done this, Euty, you better get yer moderatin’ ass down to the ER and get a cancer scan done.
I’ve wondered about this too. I figured it had something to do with ventilation and steam, but there still seem to be some unanswered questions.
For example (and this is from memory, though the principle is still the same even if I get it wrong), as I recall, in a Banquet barbecue pork rib dinner, the instructions are to remove the plastic from the mashed potatoes, leave the plastic on the corn and pork. However, with the Swanson fried chicken dinner, the instructions are to remove the plastic from the chicken and apple/cranberry crumb desert, while leaving the plastic on the corn and mashed potatoes. (There may be something in there about poking holes in certain places for both of these, too, I don’t remember).
Why the inconsistency? Should I leave the plastic on my mashed potatoes or not?
A microwaved TV dinner can never be a “subtle culinary experience”; you need to cook it in a regular oven for that ! Removing the cover over the “apple cobbler” allows it to form a delicate, lightly browned, crust; but only after 30 minutes at 350 degrees.
Don’t worry, folks. One of my new moderator duties is to, as Ed Zotti put it, “See that Eutychus55 gets a decent goddam meal into him every once in a while.”
So this evening I prepared fusilli with garlic and oil and fresh basil from the garden; gamberi alla romana, sauteed escarole, an avocado salad, and a nice piece of Gorgonzola for afters. I packed it all up with a bottle of 1997 Lamole di Lamole, and dropped it off in the mailbox about an hour ago.
Um…Ike honey…did I mention that I am free for dinner? But I prefer to get mine on a plate, not through the mail. [hopeful look] If that is not a problem, that is. [/hopeful look]
Euty, that is just plain bullshit food. You can easily make good food. Chop up a bunch of vegetables and meat, add cooked rice and a few spices and you have something good. Go out, do anything, but don’t eat that crap.
Last time I had a TV dinner, they only came in black-and-white…
…what? No rimshot? Okay, but they were covered with honest-to-goodness foil, and none of this namby-pamby plastic garbage. Kids nowadays, I tell ya…don’t know what they’re missin’.
If you tried to put it in a microwave (assuming you had a microwave), your whole kitchen would probably blow up. And to uncover one kind of food, you could just roll the foil back, no cutting required. And the tray was foil, too, not plastic or cardboard, and when your mom took it out of the oven, it was so hot she couldn’t put it on the vinyl tablecloth or it would melt a hole straight through. So the flodmother would take sections of old newspaper and fold them into the right size and shape. Voila! A disposable, personal hotpad.
The flodfather would often use the occasion to repeat the same old yarn from his days in the Navy, on a ship with the world’s worst cook. “On stormy days, the mashed potatoes would slosh from side to side…”
I’ve eaten TV dinners for my whole life (15 years) and when my mother makes them she always follows instructions. When I make them I always take most of the plastic off.
I don’t think that it will make any difference in anything. I assumed that the plastic was there to prevent it from exploding all over the place if you cook it too long.
My WAG is that keeping certain portions covered lets you cook those portions at a lower temperate (since the food can’t get any hotter than 100C until the water evaporates).
), and which require slight ventilations with poked holes or slits.
