How to take the guess work out of cooking meat … kitchen helper
Do you need a foolproof way to check if your meat is done to your liking? There’s nothing worse than having to return a roast to the oven or a steak to the frypan, because it is still “mooing”, or, worse, irretrievably overdone. This is especially so when you have guests and you’re spinning a lot of plates, so to speak. If you want to take the guesswork out of cooking meat, read on.
Many experienced home cooks like to go by feel and instinctively know when the meat they’re cooking is at the right level of ‘doneness’. Others like a more scientific approach. When faced with a large joint of pork, for example, it’s difficult to know if it’s really cooked properly until you cut into it… and see that it’s way too pink and just not ready, despite your wonderful crackling on the outside.
Enter the meat probe. This will be your trusty friend and will enable you to cook meat of all sorts with confidence. There are lots of different types of meat probes - dial models where the temperature is shown by a needle on a round dial, or digital thermometers. Dial models are more basic, while digital types are more accurate, some with many handy features. Any probe will need to be inserted quite deeply into the thickest part of the meat to register the correct internal temperature. Some digital probes are quite sophisticated, allowing you to leave the probe in the meat for continuous temperature monitoring, or even sounding an alarm when the meat is cooked to your liking. The meat probe display will indicate the optimum internal temperature for each type of meat, broken down into ‘rare’, ‘medium’ and ‘well done’.
Here's a table for easy reference.
|
Beef |
|
|
Rare |
48.9 C to 51.6 C |
|
Medium-rare |
54.4 C to 57.2 C |
|
Medium |
60 C to 62.8 C |
|
Medium-well |
65.5 C to 68.3 C |
|
Well done |
71.1 C and above |
|
Lamb |
|
|
Rare |
57.2 C |
|
Medium-rare |
60 C to 65.5 C |
|
Medium |
71.1 C |
|
Well done |
73.9 C and above |
|
Poultry |
|
|
Chicken |
73.9 C to 80 C |
|
Turkey |
73.9 C to 80 C |
|
Pork |
62.8 C |
|
Ham, fully cooked (to reheat) |
60 C |
|
Other |
|
|
Chicken mince |
73.9 C |
|
Beef or lamb mince |
71.1 C |
|
Reheated leftovers |
73.9 C |
