Miscellaneous

I am def­i­nitely not a good cook. I sur­vived almost five years of col­lege with mostly fried eggs, cold sand­wiches and fast food. But about a year ago with the “encour­age­ment” from Rali, my girl­friend, I started cook­ing, mostly meat dishes and only on spe­cial occa­sion (read: when I want to eat steak). Since Rali doesn’t eat red meat, I end up cook­ing mainly for myself. Cooking steak isn’t easy, espe­cially if you are as picky as I am when it comes to how you cook it. I found this use­ful guide last week and tried it dur­ing the week­end. The medium turns out pretty close to what I would have expected. Of course all of that con­clu­sion is based on one try, my left hand, I already know about how long it takes to cook to medium and so on… But the guide is neat anyway.

Open the palm of your hand. Relax the hand. Take the index fin­ger of your other hand and push on the fleshy area between the thumb and the base of the palm. Make sure your hand is relaxed. This is what raw meat feels like. (Check this out the next time you have a raw steak to cook.)

Now gen­tly press the tip of your pinky and your thumb together. Again feel the fleshy area below the thumb. It should feel quite firm. This is what well done meat feels like when you press on it.

Press the tip of your ring fin­ger and your thumb together. The flesh beneath the thumb should give a lit­tle more. This is what meat cooked to a medium done­ness feels like.

Press the tip of your index fin­ger to the tip of your thumb. The fleshy area below the thumb should give quite a bit. This is what meat cooked to rare feels like.

via Simply Recipes