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Monday, March 26, 2012

Meat Thermometer

Taking the guess-work out of cooking meat to a safe temperature, not only makes the cooking less stressful, but also ensures that your meat, be it fish, fowl, or miscellaneous fauna, is tasty and moist.  Let's not forget safe, either, I suppose...

Anyway, for whatever reason I never used to have a meat thermometer.  Perhaps it was because I thought I never needed one.  My mom never used one, and I don't remember ever seeing any of my extended family - including some serious German House-Fraus - use one either.

However...

;)

They often over-cook their meat.  To the point of tragedy.  Sorry, mom!

So, when I first tasted some of the roasts that my wife's family cooked up... I was amazed that there could be so much juice and flavour.

Anyway... when I first started to cook my own roasts, before this, I used to compensate for a long cooking time, by almost stewing or braising the roast with a TON of liquid in the pan alongside.

However, none of this is truly needed, if you just have faith in the science of safe temperatures for killing harmful bacteria.  There is a reason meat thermometers exist, and if you use one properly, and bring your meat up to the proper temperature, you can rest easy knowing that nothing harmful survived.

So... I love my meat thermometer.  The first one I had, I bought maybe 6 or 7 years ago, and it was one of those analog ones that you just stick in and take a reading.  However, a couple years ago I upgraded to a pretty nice digital one.


What's positively AWESOME about this thermometer, is that you can set an 'alarm' temperature for it to go off at, stick the sensor in the meat, close the lid up tight (the "wire" is extremely durable and flexible) shut the oven door, and just wait.

It's so cool.

So, for example, when I cooked my roast pork last night, I set the alarm for 165°F, and by the time I took it out, and covered it with some tin foil to 'rest' on the counter for a few minutes before carving, it was well past the safe temp of 170°F (for pork).


I love it.

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