I find that the metal ones work better and are easier to keep clean. The meat one I had just didn’t last long enough to be useful before it started to smell bad.
No. I bought one but ended up continuing my practice of looking at the meat and then taking my chances.
I don’t eat meat, and don’t seem to need them for other foods. I do use an IR thermometer though to check the temperature of the pan before putting food on it.
Yes, I have several of various types and use them extensively.
They are not necessary to cook, they are necessary to cook consistently.
Only until I get the hang of a cooking technique - once I figure out something always takes 20 minutes to get there, I just do 20 minutes.
If its always the same temp, time, cut, size, and thickness then this is generally safe
Yes. My meat thermometer is a fire and forget type where it automatically shuts off the heat once it reaches a certain temperature or preconfigured meat setting. It makes the air fryer a wonderful appliance when working on other foods simultaneously. Plus, I don’t have to worry about unsafe temps, or overcooked food.
I am an experienced cook and use one to produce consistent, on-target results. It more often prevents over-cooking, not under-cooking.
Yes. Accurate temperatures guarantee good results. Sous vied is also wonderful for stress free prep of expensive meats.
Sous vide was a game changer for me. I don’t use mine often but break it out when I want to convince people I am not terrible at cooking.
Just wish that it wasn’t necessary to use so much plastic for it. If there was any sort of plant-based film that food could be sealed in instead, it’d be perfect.
Try the reverse sear method instead. You get sous vise like results with no plastic, no water bath, just an oven and a pan.
I use my toaster oven to do the precook while searing off vegetables in my pan or baking in the larger oven, then get the pan wicked hot and sear the steak. Fast, excellent mutlitasking. Works well for pork chops too.
The whole benefit of sous vide is that you can completely forget about the meat—even leave it for days at a time—and it will never overcook. Just take it out anytime, slap it on the stove for a quick sear, and get a perfect medium rare every time.
As someone with extreme ADHD, this is why I always sous vide my steak. Reverse sear is slow, yes, but there’s still a chance to forget about it and let it overcook.
Its a much better cook than sous vide imo.
I find it to basically be exactly the same, but almost no setup. No filling a pot/container with water, putting the stick heater in, ziplocking or vacuum sealing the meat, then waiting an hour+ for it to hit temperature.
Toss the steaks on a tray, preheat toaster oven in 5 min to 225f, prep and cook the rest of the meal and the sear off the steaks after 20min. Easy as fuck.
My new stove/oven has air sous vide, as they call it. You still have to bag up whatever you’re cooking, but otherwise it’s a lot less work. Seems to work just fine, but it does take a little longer than liquid sous vide.
Sounds like they rebranded convection a bit, but more power to them if it works.
It does work. And it is not rebranded convection. In order to cook sous vide, you need to be able to consistently maintain pretty low temperatures. That’s what the oven offers and it works well.
I think most people who do sous vide cooking also use the reverse sear method.
Hopefully as an alternative at times and not as an addition. Doing both wouldn’t have any advantage, as both work to take the internal temp of the meat to a specific state and hold it there.
We use silicon bags and magnets. You let the top of the bag drape over the side of the bucket(tub? basin?) and hold it in place with a few magnets. From what I can tell the results are the same for the steaks and meat we cook and none of the sketchiness from eating slow heated plastic.
It’s also great for cheap beef. You can throw a tri-tip or brisket in there and run it for literal days until you have meat as tender as the deli counter, while also being med-rare throughout.
I think possibly the best steak I ever had/made was a cheap chuck steak that I gave a nice long sous vide treatment
There is a whole lot of flavor there, but it can be as tough as shoe leather, but with sous vide it came out as tender as any filet, but way beefier
Im vegan
Absolutely, and not just for meats. Anything that has a temperature requirement for best cooking method.
An instant-read thermometer is a game changer to make sure fish, meat, and anything else that needs it is properly cooked, and just as importantly, not over-cooked.
Yes. It will tell you what’s happening where your eyes cannot see.
Only when I’m slow roasting something that take hours. I got a bluetooth meat thermometer as a gift a little while back and it’s really convenient. There’s an app that goes with it. I just set what type of meat it is and insert the thermometer and let it cook. The app tells me when the food is ready.
But that’s only for large pieces of meat that take a long time. For anything on the stovetop or grill, or any smaller pieces of meat in the over/airfryer I just do it by feel. I’ve been cooking long enough that I can tell when a piece of meat is ready just by pushing on it to feel the firmness. And I have a pretty intuitive sense for how long something takes to cook.
I also received a Meater as a gift - but I use it for basically any meat that goes in the oven or gets grilled. And I’ve found myself putting more meats in the oven so I can use it.
The thing is fantastic and has changed my life - especially when it comes to poultry
I haven’t found a need for it with poultry. I also don’t really cook whole birds, though. Mostly just wings or breasts. I don’t need a thermometer for those.
Yes. Especially for chicken breasts. It’s easy enough to know for sure they’re done, but they’re much easier to eat as soon as they hit 155F. My immune system has never questioned my chicken, but my taste buds are very thankful for the meat thermometer.
I meant to reply directly to you: https://lemmy.world/comment/17040636
Interesting. I heard that chicken needs to be cooked to 165F. Do you let it rest (and does that get it to eventually reach 165F?)
I just want juicy chicken that won’t give me diarrhea!
I always heard 165 too, but I looked at the chart on the meat thermometer and it said 155 for breast. I tried it out and it’s much juicer.
TIL!! Thank you
Every time.
Yes, on the rare occasion I cook meat. Too unpracticed otherwise. I originally got one because I’m colorblind and was scared of undercooking red meat and tired of eating leather. As a bonus, I used it to get the temperature right when I got into fancier teas and inadvertently trained myself to judge the temperature of water pouring into my mug by the sound it makes within a couple °C, which is kinda neat. Now, if I could figure out how to do something similar so I stop overcooking food, that’d be grand…
