[wfunction]

I mean, it frequently is. I don't know about you but my microwaved food doesn't always get heated evenly. (Sure, maybe it would if I put it there 10x longer at 10% power, but then that would defeat the point of my use of the microwave.) And it's hard to cook things in a microwave... it's far more suited to reheating pre-cooked food. Not that I'm a chef, but it's not a wrong perception IMO.

[weaksauce]

Unless you have an inverter type microwave it's always full power when cooking at 10% it's actually just 10% active time with the magnetron running full blast. As a tool, a microwave is like a blunt instrument unless you have the nicer microwaves. 10% is akin to running the flame to ultra high and only putting the skillet down 6 seconds every minute. Not efficient and not good technique. Coupled with the fact that microwaves operate by exciting the water molecules in the food and you have uneven cooking if there is a large discrepancy between the water content of different foods on the same plate. Finally, without special gear, you can't really brown or crisp anything in the microwave so the end result is more mushy than most people desire.

[franciscop]

I think wfunction was referring to this, that food with a constant water content are still not cooked uniformly: http://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/microwave-oven-diagnost...

[wfunction]

> Unless you have an inverter type microwave it's always full power when cooking at 10% it's actually just 10% active time with the magnetron running full blast.

I'm aware of this, and I do actually have that kind. And what I said should hold true about getting even heat distribution regardless of that. I didn't claim it was a good (or bad) cooking technique.

[rockinghigh]

Food is heated evenly in a microwave only if water is spread evenly in your food. It works well for soups or sauces. Not so well for pasta (it will dry out), bread or meat.

[wfunction]

You're mixing lots of things up here. "It will dry out" has everything to do with the amount of heating and nothing to do with its evenness. Soups/sauces heat well despite uneven heating because of secondary effects like better convection/conduction (not sure which particular effects are more significant) due to the sheer amount of water relative to the rest of the food. The water distribution of the food is not the problem here; the problem is the radiation pattern. A uniform radiation pattern and uniform water content will give you even heating, and a water content that exactly compensates for an awful radiation pattern will also give you even heating.