• ornery_chemist@mander.xyz
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    5 hours ago

    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’s be grand…

  • aubeynarf@lemmynsfw.com
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    6 hours ago

    I am an experienced cook and use one to produce consistent, on-target results. It more often prevents over-cooking, not under-cooking.

  • BigAssFan@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    Mine has been upgraded to an oil thermometer, as meat consumption is not only highly immoral, but also self-destructive in the long run.

  • yesman@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Yes. Accurate temperatures guarantee good results. Sous vied is also wonderful for stress free prep of expensive meats.

    • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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      6 hours ago

      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.

      • Xraygoggles@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        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.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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        2 hours ago

        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.

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            4 hours ago

            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.

            • Drusas@fedia.io
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              4 hours ago

              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.

                • Drusas@fedia.io
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                  1 hour ago

                  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.

        • Drusas@fedia.io
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          4 hours ago

          I think most people who do sous vide cooking also use the reverse sear method.

          • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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            2 hours ago

            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.

      • yesman@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        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.

        • Fondots@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          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

  • Sludgehammer@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    Yep, I am absolutely crap when it comes to judging the doneness of meat. I’ll often over or under cook without one.

    It also It makes things a lot less stressful when I cook. Rather than constantly going to the kitchen and checking if the roast (or whatever) is ready I just have a wireless thermometer I can look at while I play video games, read or something.

  • fprawn@lemmy.world
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    4 hours ago

    Depends on what I’m cooking, but always for chicken breasts. Roasting at a high temperature works great (it’s not the only way), but can mean the overcooking time is pretty small. It’s an easy way to respect the bird and get the best results possible.

    Thighs on the other hand, I just go by eye, you really have to try hard to overcook those.

    Might be worth noting that using a thermometer well does require some amount of skill and experience, you need to insert it into the right location for the data to be repeatable. Easier to learn than cooking by eye, though.