How do I use a meat thermometer?

A thermometer replaces every timing chart and every unreliable visual test. It costs very little and it is the single piece of equipment that most improves home cooking of meat.

What you'll need

• Digital probe thermometer

Step by step

1. Insert into the thickest part, away from bone.Bone conducts heat differently and gives a false high reading. Fat gives a false reading too.
2. Push it past the centre and draw it back slowly.Watch the reading fall and then rise. The lowest number is the true centre temperature.
3. Learn the targets that matter.Poultry 74°C. Pork and whole cuts of beef and lamb 63°C for medium. Minced meat 75°C. Fish 63°C.
4. Pull the meat 3-5°C early.Carryover cooking continues after it leaves the heat — more in a large joint, less in a thin cut. Cooking to target means overshooting.
5. Check more than one place in a large joint.Joints cook unevenly. The lowest reading is the one that counts for safety.
6. Use it for baking and frying too.Bread is done around 95°C in the centre; oil for frying should be 175-190°C. The same tool answers both.
7. Check the thermometer's accuracy occasionally.In iced water it should read 0°C, in boiling water 100°C at sea level. Cheap probes drift over time.

Tips

• An instant-read probe is more useful day to day than a leave-in one, though a leave-in probe with an alarm is excellent for large roasts.
• Clean the probe between uses, particularly between raw and cooked. It touches the centre of the food.
• Do not leave an instant-read thermometer in the oven unless it is designed for it. Most are not.

Common mistakes

• Touching the bone with the probe — Bone heats differently and gives a reading well above the actual meat temperature, so you undercook it.
• Cooking to the target temperature — Carryover cooking takes it several degrees past. Pull it early and let the rest finish the job.
• Taking a single reading in a large joint — Joints cook unevenly. Check several points and trust the lowest.

Questions people ask