Microwave Griddle Cavity for Fast, Even Two-Sided Cooking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cooking apparatuses for food products on both sides often result in undercooked interiors despite browning on the outside, leading to excessively long cooking times and potential overcooking, with limited control over cooking processes to achieve crispiness or juiciness.
Innovation Solution
An apparatus with a base and upper heating surfaces that enclose food products, incorporating a microwave generator and adjustable top heating surface, allowing for controlled microwave radiation and adjustable humidity to ensure even cooking, along with a bottom heating surface that uses microwaves to assist in cooking and reduce cooking time.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If contact heating or infrared radiation is used to cook food products on both sides simultaneously, then cooking time is reduced, but the food products remain uncooked inside while being browned on the outside
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines three cooking methods (contact heating, infrared radiation, and microwave heating) into a single apparatus. The heating surfaces provide contact heating and infrared radiation for browning, while the microwave generator penetrates the food to cook the interior simultaneously, resolving the contradiction between fast cooking and uniform cooking.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces microwaves as an intermediary energy form that can penetrate the food product to heat the interior directly. This mediator allows the exterior to be browned by contact heating while the interior is cooked by microwave energy, achieving both speed and uniformity.
2Manufacturing precision
If cooking time is increased to cook the inside of food products, then the interior becomes cooked, but the exterior becomes overcooked and scorched
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple heating mechanisms that operate at different rates and penetration depths. Contact heating and infrared radiation work rapidly on the surface to brown the exterior, while microwaves penetrate deeper to cook the interior at a controlled rate, preventing overcooking of the exterior while ensuring thorough cooking of the interior.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies different heating qualities to different parts of the food product. The heating surfaces provide intense localized heating for browning the exterior, while the microwave generator provides distributed volumetric heating for cooking the interior, allowing each region to be treated according to its specific cooking requirements.
3Device complexity
If prior-art apparatuses are used for cooking, then simple construction is maintained, but the cooking process cannot be controlled to achieve different textures
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a multi-functional apparatus that can perform different cooking operations by controlling the interaction between contact heating, infrared radiation, and microwave heating. The same apparatus can produce crispy textures by emphasizing surface heating or juicier textures by emphasizing internal heating through microwave control, providing versatility without requiring multiple separate devices.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables efficient cooking of food products on both sides with significantly shorter times, maintaining flavor and preventing scorching, while allowing for adjustable cooking methods to achieve desired textures and easy cleaning.
Implementation Method 1
a microwave generator (7) adapted to irradiate the food products being enclosed between the heating surfaces (3, 5)
Implementation Method 2
These griddles use contact heating or infrared radiation as a process to cook such products
Implementation Method 3
These griddles use contact heating or infrared radiation as a process to cook such products
Data Source
AI summary
Apparatus for cooking food products on both sides thereof, including a base member (2) associated to a bottom heating surface (3) adapted to support food products to be cooked, an upper member (4) associated to a top heating surface (5) and joined in an articulated manner to the base member (2) so that, when the upper member (4) is displaced towards the base member (2), the top heating surface (5) comes to lie opposite to the bottom heating surface (3) so as to enclose the food products therebetween. The upper member (4) is adapted to close in onto the base member (2) so as to form a cooking cavity (6) containing the heating surfaces (3, 5), wherein the cooking cavity (6) defines a radiation shield capable of retaining the microwaves inside the cooking cavity (6) itself.