While there are many delicacies in life for us to enjoy, food is and always will be one of the best and most special ones. It can lift you up when you are feeling down, and it provides us with moments of joy and serenity when we are enjoying a delicious meal. Cooking food is even more pleasing and interesting, and it can be quite fulfilling to make a meal of your own. Meat, in particular, is as delicious as it is fun to make, but it is not an easy task, though. You see a beautiful steak and think it is just grilled or something, but cooking it to perfection requires expertise and practice. Here is how you can make sure your meat is cooked perfectly.
Forget timing
People have preferences when it comes to cooking meat, and the internet can be quite helpful with those. You open a link and it tells you to cook your steak for X minutes, but if you want to really do it right, you need to forget about those cooking times you read online and in cookbooks. People don’t use the same grills, pans, or ovens. So, following those times down to the last minute can be quite problematic –– you’ll start smelling burnt meat and you won’t flip it because the guide says to wait for two more minutes.
How do I know if it is cooked?
This one might be a bit tricky, but with time and practice, you will start getting the hang of things and you will be able to tell whether or not the meat is cooked. There are some things that you should know, though. For starters, meat changes its color when it is cooked –– there should be no pink meat left –– so that is your first sign that the steak is perfectly cooked. You need to also pierce the thickest part you can find on the steak with a fork/skewer to see if the juices are running. You might want to cut the steak open with a knife to see if it is hot on the inside, too; it needs to be steaming so you could be 100% certain that it is properly cooked.
Get yourself a thermometer
Any chef worth their salt needs a good thermometer around the kitchen. It is your best chance of getting a perfectly cooked steak that is juicy yet not burnt or still rare. To maintain that ideal balance, a thermometer is your best friend. As you can see on https://brobbq.com/best-instant-read-thermometer/, you will need to get an instant-read meat thermometer, because you don’t have to wait to get a final reading on the temperature. You just need to insert it into the meat and you will instantly get a read. There are plenty of great choices in the market, and you need to take your time finding one that works best for you and is capable of helping you cook meat perfectly.
Use your fingers
While fingering a steak might sound a bit awkward, the ‘finger test’ is actually quite helpful if you want to cook a medium or rare steak. It can help you figure if it is indeed cooked to the temperature you want, which might not always be easy with a thermometer. What you want to do is take your index finger and relax your hand, then push the finger against the base of your thumb in the relaxed hand, which should feel squishy and tender. This is how you know your steak is raw on the inside –– it will feel the same. If you want a rare steak, connect the tips of your index and thumb, and touch it with the other hand’s index like you did before. This time it will feel a bit firm, which is to show that your steak is rare.
Visual indicators
We talked earlier about an important visual indicator, which is when meat cooks, there is no pink left. There are other ones. Meat shrinks when it is cooked, so its size should get smaller. If it is still the same, then it is probably not cooked yet. You also need to see the juices running out of your steak or chicken, which is an indicator that it is cooked.
You won’t master these techniques overnight. It takes time and a lot of practice to master cooking meat. You will have quite a few undercooked steaks and more than a few overcooked ones, but it is all part of the learning process. You need to keep going until you finally get the hang of things, which will happen one way or another.