I LOVE reading recipes but I find recipes from the US frustrating (though I love many of the recipes). First I have to convert everything to metric but that is not a problem at all. But then any recipe involving meat starts talking about temperature.
Why temperature? Why not by feel or the colour of the juices. I don’t own a meat thermometer and I don’t think I have ever even seen one available for sale. Why can’t American recipes use an amount of time even if only aproximate?
Is the temperature of the meat really that vital? Is there somewhere I can convert recipes using time and oven temp rather than the temp of the meat?
For health purposes, some meats have to be heated to a particular temperature to kill bacteria or parasites.
But I don’t use a thermometer either. I can tell well enough by seeing if the juices run clear or the meat is no longer pink (note: it’s anathema to American cooks to cut into a piece of meat to check for doneness because “the juices run out.” But sticking it full of holes with a meat thermometer is somehow OK. In any case, I’ve never had a problem with dried out meat except when I overcooked it, not when I cut into it.)
The main thing about using a thermometer is that it’s unambiguous and can be done without needed a lot of experience. It’s easy and certain, so it’s popular.
I’m not a professional cook, but have been cooking for many years. That said, most cookbooks in the US will tell you that a particular cut of meat, say a leg of lamb, should be cooked at 350 degrees for maybe 20 minutes per pound.
But that’s only a guide, and without a meat thermometer you’d not know if it had your desired degree of doneness until you started to carve. I always use the minutes per pound to plan when it will be complete, but use a thermometer to ensure that I’m correct. The shape of the cut can make a difference as well. Long and thin, such as a pork tenderloin will cook much faster that a fatter pork loin.
I recently purchased an instant read digital thermometer that reads in about 3 seconds, much better than the one I had been using that took 20 seconds or more to stabilize it’s reading.
The correct doneness of the meat is really that vital and its temperature is the best proxy for that. You can’t say “cook the steak to a perfect medium rare” and expect to be helpful and informative in a recipe because readers of a recipe need to know how to do that. Feeling for doneness can work but it’s not as precise as temperature and hard to teach in a 1 page recipe. Timing per pound is problematic because individual ovens or grills or stove tops will vary. A properly cooked piece of meat is the same temperature in any kitchen.
Cooking to temperature offers a lot more precision than “watching the juices”. If I know that my turkey will be done at 172, I can take it off the fire when it hits 168-9 and know that with the residual heat it will be done as close to perfectly as I can get.
Also, you can check in different spots. Using my turkey example again, I can position the bird so the dark meat is closer to the fire and cooking faster and the white meat is cooking slower. I can check both spots and make adjustments as required.
I use a probe thermometer, mainly when I’m grilling. This allows me to keep a very close eye on exactly how my piece of meat is doing without opening the grill (which results in heat (and tasty smoke) loss and causes cooking times to increase.)
Calm Kiwi I find it difficult to believe that there aren’t meat thermometers for sale in your country. They’re available in every supermarket, discount store or cooking supply store here. I swear by mine, especially for large pieces of meat. The quality of my roasts, fowl and so on has increased exponentially since I became a convert. Thanks Alton Brown!
I never understood why cooking to temperature was NOT more popular.
An insta-read thermometer costs about $10, and it takes the guesswork out of cooking. Sure, you can get a feel for meat cookery when you’ve done it a lot, but that takes a LOT of experience. And it doesn’t work for large pieces of meat - I can tell when a steak is done by touch, for example, but a roast? Much harder.
As far as I’m concerned, an insta-read is an essential kitchen tool, right up there with a good knife and a 10" frying pan.
Cooking is the application of heat to food. Temperature, the measurement of heat, is therefore the most important and relevant measurement. Time and “feel” of the meat are simply indirect ways to estimate internal temperature.
Yes, I learned from Alton Brown. It’s geekish, but cooking sure as hell made a lot more sense to me once I realized the above.
Temperature is the best way to describe it objectively. When I’m giving recipes on here I always give them to temp. When I cook something like steaks or pork chops at home I usually cook to feel. But it is absolutely impossible to convey feel to someone else. All of those wierd ‘touch your hand here’, or ‘touch your face there’ don’t help. A rare steak feels like a rare steak, but that doesn’t help, so temp is best.
Also. Every piece of meat is different. Time at temp doesn’t actually work that well for a roast. The most important cooking tip I ever learned from my grandma about cooking a Turkey; The turkey will pick the schedule. Sure 20 minutes a pound is a place to start your estimate, but the turkey will cook as the turkey wants to cook, and be done when it is done. The surest way to screw it up is to play with the heat to get it done exactly on time. Watch the temp and set your timing off of that.
This point was sort of briefly touched on, but I’ve noticed that all ovens are not the same and they are not calibrated. I bought an oven thermometer (because precise temperatures can be really critical in baking, especially dishes like soufflés) and discovered that my oven tends to run about 50º cooler than the number on the dial.
So, for example, if my recipe calls for roasting something at 350º for 50 minutes, and I set my oven to 350º, it will actually roast at 300º for 50 minutes and my dish will be undercooked. With my handy dandy oven thermometer, I set the oven at 400º and put the dish in when the thermometer stabilizes at 350º and presto… perfectly cooked food.
If you can find an owner’s manual for your oven, I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that it has a procedure to correct the setting, so that the dial and the actual temperature match.
Instaread is nice, but there are probe temperatures that give a constant reading available for 20$ or so. You never need to open the oven, and you can convert from F to C quickly.
I like working by temperature because it provides a repeatable effect. Knowing that your perfect steak came out at 125 and coasted to 132 means that you can consistently make your perfect steak in a variety of environments.
Wow, I had no idea. If I have the owner’s manual, I know exactly where it is (should be), so I’ll check that out.
Funny anecdote regarding ovens: I have never purchased a brand new stove/oven. I had no idea that they generally come with a roasting pan in the broiler. I lived in three different apartments thinking that the previous tenants were stupid and forgot to take their roasting pans with them when they moved out, and stole them, before someone finally mentioned to me that they come with. :smack: The really funny part: I’m a vegetarian. I never roast meat and have no use for a roasting pan. But I have at least three. So it comes as no surprise that I didn’t know you can calibrate your own oven.
But then the temperature isn’t accurate. But since the absolute terror cooks have of losing juice (let’s let the meat get ice cold or you’ll lose the juice when you cut it!) has no basis in my experience, it’s a moot point.
In addition, I’ve never found a meat thermometer – electronic or otherwise – that gave a dependable reading. I’ve many a time had it register something wasn’t up to temperature only to cut into it and see it was perfect. Or I’d get it somewhere below the temperature selected only to find it was overcooked.
Actually, I’m even learning how to tell even without cutting into the meat, if you have that sort of phobia. I can’t imagine professional chefs running around their kitchens with meat thermometers.
Um, that’s exactly what they do. They have insta-reads in the chest pocket of their chef’s coats.
Also, if you’re letting meat rest until it’s cold, you’re doing it wrong. There is plenty of scientific reasoning behind the loss of juices in a piece of meat that is cut while still very hot and/or still cooking.
If you can’t, the make and model should yield decent results on the intarwebs.
I can’t imagine a professional chef that doesn’t have a meat thermometer on them at all times. In fact, I can’t imagine a professional chef not wearing a chef coat that has a pocket on the sleeve specifically for a meat thermometer.
If the temperature isn’t accurate, then you’re inserting the thermometer incorrectly. People who know what they’re doing insert it in the correct place.
Wait, what? I get that meat continues cooking due to residual heat after it comes out of the oven, but I don’t see how the temperature itself would continue to rise after you’ve stopped applying heat to it.
If you’re taking the temperature of the center of the cut, then it will continue to cook as the hotter outside portions of the meat distribute the heat toward the inside.
Otherwise, it’s impossible to continue cooking via residual heat without the temperature increasing.
You can’t tell a lot about meat doneness simply by looking at the color. For example, some hamburger meat will appear gray yet be undercooked, while other may be cooked to a safe temp. but will still be pink in color.
Sure, I could cook a pork tenderloin for an approximate time and cut it in half, hoping that it reached a proper temperature and doneness (or risk overcooking it and turning it to leather), or I could just put a thermometer in it and be 100% sure it’s done the first time. It just makes sense.
