Food Temperature
Disclaimer: I’m not a food scientist. I’m not a scientist. I don’t even play one on TV (and if you get that reference, you’re old like me).
Cook your food however your like and however you feel safe with, but if you want to stop making your food dry and tasteless, don’t always believe what the lawyers put on the packaging.
Lawyers require that food people put temperatures on their products that are, frankly, ridiculous. And make the food taste awful. “Cook to 165°F!” — there should be a footnote to that that says “if you want your food dry, tasteless, and icky.”
Some other time I’ll talk about thermometers and what ones I like, but those people who cook without a thermometer I think are insane. I see people on cooking shows saying, “I hope this is done,” or “I hope I didn’t overcook this,” and think, “Well, dipshit, there’s an easy way to tell: use a thermometer!”
I’ve tried the “touch the steak to tell its doneness” and I just evidently don’t have “the touch” — medium-rare feels the same as medium-well to me. Okay, rare and well-done I can tell apart — the former feeling squishy and the latter feeling like it belongs in the garbage.
Anyway, to avoid being sued by people who undercook their food, the lawyers make packaging say stupid shit.
Ground food, sure, cook that to 165°F (75°C) — e.coli can live to 160°F and it can hide away in the nooks and crannies of ground meats. Or live on the wild side and get good meat and cook it lower to preserve some flavor and moisture.
“Chicken breasts,” Chef Ben Davis once said, “is the most tortured piece of meat in the United States.” Salmonella dies at 140°F — cook your chicken breasts to 145°F (63°C). If you cook it to 165°F it’s gonna suck.
Shrimp — 120°F (48°C). Salmon 125°F (52°C).
Steaks will continue cooking after you take them off the heat, so if you want you steak medium-rare stop at 135°F (57°C). If you want your steak well done, just stop reading now and go somewhere else.
Stop cooking pork at 145°F (63°C). Really. “But what about trichinosis?” you ask. Trichinosis hasn’t been a thing in pork in the civilized world since the late 1950s. If you’re buying your pork off-market from someone who feeds dead pigs to their live pigs, well go ahead and cook that a little longer.
If you’re cooking bear, go ahead and cook that to 165°F. Or higher. Bear meat might still have trichinosis.