Icy sparks
Question: I often cook mixed vegetables from frozen in a microwave, on a
microwaveable plate. I’ve noticed that carrots produce sparks during cooking
and, on closer examination, they display small burns. Why is this?
Answer: Several factors make frozen carrots susceptible to the effect
described (although other vegetables do this).
First, while microwaves are extremely good at heating liquid water, ice is
almost totally transparent to them, so it is actually quite difficult to get ice
to melt in a domestic microwave oven. The “defrost” option on a microwave oven
relies on intermittent heating of a small…
