Fitted microwave/convention oven

[Pud2]

I’ve recently moved house and have had to buy a fitted microwave to fill a hole left by the previous owner. It’s a microwave/grill/convection oven. Lots of instructions and parts! Any advice on how best to use it? I’m in Danger of just using it to microwave which is a bit silly given the cost of it!

The microwave/convection oven will let you bake food (food will brown in it) unlike a conventional microwave. We tend to use ours if we are catering for the masses (otherwise known as my family) on a Sunday and we run out of room/shelf space in the normal oven. We got a spit with ours that lets us roast a chicken - it works really well. Baked potatoes also do well in it - skins are better than in normal microwave. It allows more food to be cooked also - ours came with a shelf so you could cook 2 things at one go which we could never do with the old microwave. We sometimes use it instead of the main oven if we are only cooking for ourselves and the kids are out - it's easier to clean. The kids (teenagers) use it to cook pizza.

Thanks Blunt. Do the roast chicken/pizzas come out crispy?

Pud2 Yes, ours do.

I’m a bit confused by these answers. Don’t you use it as either a microwave or a convection oven (but not both at the same time)? So if you select the oven option then things will come out as they do with a normal oven (ie brown and/or crispy) and if you select the microwave option it just heats things up?

@MrsFezziwig I used to have one and there were settings to do both at the same time. So when I made baked potato I'd have the microwave and oven going at the same time. From the noises it used to make I think it automatically alternated between the two when I had the combi function on.

They both work at the same time on my Neff. The operating instructions need a degree to understand them though.

Why did your vendors leave a hole? Built in is built in!

Thanks all! I’ve only had mine (Neff) a few weeks after having an ordinary microwave before, and now I’ve looked properly at the instructions I’ve found the section where it tells you how to use both functions at the same time. Could be a game changer, especially with the baked potatoes!
Is there somewhere that tells you what cooking times to use for things like baked potatoes and chicken, or have people just used trial and error?

Ours has pre-set programs for certain things. Like it will defrost for X minutes then cook for Y minutes.

Or you tell it if you want baked potatoes, or a rare/medium/well done beef joint, or a chicken, and the weight, and it calculates the times and temps.

However it mostly gets used for warming plates.

Yes, was rather annoyed there was a big hole. They took the oven and the fridge, which were both fitted!

Will study the instructions again but they’re a bit of a minefiled. Will have to just experiment I think.