What are Kitchen Thermometers for?

 What are Kitchen Thermometers for?

Being, as it is, a very affordable product with many uses, we should be surprised not to have a kitchen thermometer in our stoves, whether or not we are passionate cooks or fans of the noble art of cooking.

And the fact is that, although the uses of a kitchen thermometer are very varied, and also vary depending on the type of thermometer, there are aspects related to the exact cooking point of food and others that refer to food safety , which we can only control properly with the help of a kitchen thermometer.

- What are Kitchen Thermometers for and Instant-Read Thermometers Product

Here are the 5 reasons to buy a kitchen thermometer and never regret it:

1. To make perfect roasts
Baking meats and fish by eye, or following the advice of a recipe literally, without taking into account the weight and exact size of your piece, means sacrificing to a large extent its doneness. On the other hand, using a kitchen thermometer for the oven with a probe, we will know the moment when the food reaches the exact temperature that indicates its cooking point.

In this sense, as a guide, you should know that meat and fish are safely made when their internal part reaches 80ºC. Exceptionally, meats that admit one point or point less than cooking, can be removed from the oven from 65ºC.

2. To confit
We already explained in this article the technique to confit fish:

Confit, instead of frying, has the advantage of turning the fish into juicy bites, perfectly cooked but never dry, with a perfect aroma point and an impeccable texture. But to be able to do it with precision, you need to set the temperature of the oil between 60 and 65ºC, and for that it is necessary to have a kitchen thermometer for liquids .

3. To make breads and cakes just right
As in the case of roasted meats and fish, baking dough is a science that turns each bread or cake into its own and unique entity each time, especially if it is not absolutely rigorous in the times and in temperature.

To this should be added that, regardless of what the thermostat of our oven says, its temperature tends to drop drastically when we keep the door open to introduce our dough, this fact influencing the final result.

To avoid this, it is enough to puncture the probe of an oven thermometer again in the center of our dough .

4. For food safety
When we cook meat and fish at low temperatures in order to achieve extra juiciness and tenderness, we could be putting our health at risk.

It must be taken into account that cooking with heat, in addition to allowing us to achieve very attractive results for the eyes and the palate, allows us to “kill” the microorganisms that can cause problems if they are ingested. We already dealt with this topic when talking about fish anisakis :

How to kill anisakis from fish

In this sense, 60ºC is the “safety temperature” that guarantees that bacteria such as anisakis and the rest of microorganisms in a piece of meat or fish have been killed.

In the opposite case, it is also known that subjecting certain foods to temperatures above a limit, such as vegetable fats (for example, seed oils or olive oil), means increasing the presence in these of polluting substances, in some cases of a carcinogenic nature.

In either case, it will be good to have a kitchen thermometer.

5. To cook in large quantities
It may seem silly if you have never cooked in a pot of more than 10 liters, but it happens that, at large volumes, it is necessary to homogenize the temperature of the food to achieve a good result. For this, it is necessary to stir constantly, and have as support a kitchen thermometer.