Designed as the ultimate in modern convenience, microwave meals can still feel like a fiddly affair.
There’s certainly a skill in adjusting the timing for your particular machine to avoid turning the sauce into a mouth-melting plasma, and dodging the scalding steam as you peel back the lid to stir.
But a new kind of ready meal has an old-fashioned solution to these problems – pressure-cooker packaging that whistles like a traditional kettle when it’s done.
Novel: The packaging contains a valve emits a whistle once it's cooked
A British supermarket is launching a range of six curries utilising the Swedish technology, which uses a valve in the film lid to create a vacuum after the meals are cooked in the factory – sealing in nutrients, textures and flavours and keeping out bacteria.
This same valve whistles when the meal is done, ensuring the meal is removed from the microwave before it is overcooked. There is no need to prick the lid or stir mid-way through cooking.
A spokesman for MicVac, the company behind the technology, told The Grocer magazine: ‘You put the product in the microwave, don’t have to stir it halfway through, hear it whistle and it’s ready. It’s a step change in the food industry.
‘We’ve got a Michelin-starred chef that’s been using it in Sweden.’
The Indian curries will hit Tesco supermarket shelves next month. It is not yet known what dishes will be on offer or how much they will cost.
Handy: The meals don't need piercing beforehand, and don't even need to be stirred midway through cooking. (Pic posed by model)
A spokesman for S&R Foods, which is producing the curries, said: ‘The technology allows us to achieve things that were thought impossible with chilled meals, such as using raw garnishes in-pack and using 100 per cent fresh ingredients in every meal, but still with a 30-day shelf life.’
Tesco will be the first major supermarket to use the packaging in the UK, although it is already being used in a range S&R created for Makro last year.
The magazine said a similar process is being used in a vending machine that sells hot ready meals.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...irring-piercing-beforehand.html#ixzz1MXHjWgOz
There’s certainly a skill in adjusting the timing for your particular machine to avoid turning the sauce into a mouth-melting plasma, and dodging the scalding steam as you peel back the lid to stir.
But a new kind of ready meal has an old-fashioned solution to these problems – pressure-cooker packaging that whistles like a traditional kettle when it’s done.
Novel: The packaging contains a valve emits a whistle once it's cooked
A British supermarket is launching a range of six curries utilising the Swedish technology, which uses a valve in the film lid to create a vacuum after the meals are cooked in the factory – sealing in nutrients, textures and flavours and keeping out bacteria.
This same valve whistles when the meal is done, ensuring the meal is removed from the microwave before it is overcooked. There is no need to prick the lid or stir mid-way through cooking.
A spokesman for MicVac, the company behind the technology, told The Grocer magazine: ‘You put the product in the microwave, don’t have to stir it halfway through, hear it whistle and it’s ready. It’s a step change in the food industry.
‘We’ve got a Michelin-starred chef that’s been using it in Sweden.’
The Indian curries will hit Tesco supermarket shelves next month. It is not yet known what dishes will be on offer or how much they will cost.
Handy: The meals don't need piercing beforehand, and don't even need to be stirred midway through cooking. (Pic posed by model)
A spokesman for S&R Foods, which is producing the curries, said: ‘The technology allows us to achieve things that were thought impossible with chilled meals, such as using raw garnishes in-pack and using 100 per cent fresh ingredients in every meal, but still with a 30-day shelf life.’
Tesco will be the first major supermarket to use the packaging in the UK, although it is already being used in a range S&R created for Makro last year.
The magazine said a similar process is being used in a vending machine that sells hot ready meals.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...irring-piercing-beforehand.html#ixzz1MXHjWgOz