subject: Oven Roasted: What Is A Convection Oven? [print this page] Any visitor to the UK will most likely to have eaten oven roasted food at some stage in their life. Be it the traditional Sunday roast packed with cooked meat, potatoes and vegetables, through to deserts such as cakes and pies. Roasted food is a traditional English meal and is something ingrained on the memory of all who have been brought up in the UK.
A traditional oven simply reaches a temperature, either via a gas flame or via electric element, and then maintains this temperature. The cook would simply place the prepared food within the oven and leave this for a set period, until the food is ready.
Traditional ovens of this nature tended to suffer from one or two problems. As you may remember from your science lessons at school, heat rises, which resulted in ovens being hotter at the top than they were elsewhere. Fans were placed within ovens to keep the air circulating.
This resulted in an additional benefit; the moving air prevented cooler air from building up around the food, stripping it away and resulting in a faster way of cooking. This means that convection ovens will cook at a faster pace, and will, in effect, be hotter than traditional offers, hence why many cookery guides advise using a lower temperature in a convection or fan-assisted oven than they would in other types.
Convection microwave ovens adopt two different technologies; they effectively work as a microwave oven usually would, by heating food via microwaves, whilst also using the moving hot air to ensure said food is evenly browned and crispy.
Commercial ovens are more robust than residential varieties. Rather than catering for a small number of meals with only occasional use, a commercial convection oven will most like be larger, stronger, and designed for sustained use. Commercial convection ovens and commercial microwave convection ovens are used in restaurants across the world to provide tasty meal after tasty meal to diners without having long waits.
Reliability is crucial on all commercial ovens. If you were to run a restaurant, you may only have one solitary convection oven. If this were to break down you would be unable to cook any roasted food - no roast potatoes or vegetables, no pies, no gravy...
And so, the next time you dine out, spare a thought for the humble oven and how it has developed over the years. Despite a very basic principle, the technology continues to develop and provide us with faster and more reliable ways to enjoy our meals without having a long wait.
