How to Tell When It Is Done Without Trusting the Clock

How do I know when it’s done? Check the food, not the timer: use an instant-read thermometer for meat, poultry, fish and egg dishes, and the food’s own signs for everything else, such as a skewer that comes out clean, a knife that slides in, or a sauce that coats a spoon. Recipe times are a starting point. Begin checking a little before the time is up, and keep checking until the sign is there.

Why recipe times are only a guide

A recipe’s time was right for the writer’s oven, pan and ingredients. Yours differ. Ovens run hotter or cooler than their dial, a thin pan heats faster than a heavy one, a chicken breast from one pack can be twice as thick as another, and food straight from the fridge takes longer than food at room temperature. A timer tells you when to look. It can’t tell you what you’ll find.

Is the chicken done? Use a thermometer

For meat, poultry and fish, colour and juices aren’t reliable. Chicken can run clear before it’s safe and stay pink after it is. The only sure check is temperature. FoodSafety.gov lists these safe minimum internal temperatures:

Poultry, whole, pieces or ground: 165 °F (74 °C)
Ground beef, pork, lamb and veal: 160 °F (71 °C)
Steaks, chops and roasts of beef, pork, lamb and veal: 145 °F (63 °C), then a three-minute rest
Fish and shellfish: 145 °F (63 °C)
Egg dishes: 160 °F (71 °C)

Push the probe into the thickest part, away from bone and fat, and give a digital thermometer a few seconds to settle. To test the thermometer itself, stand it in a glass of ice water: it should read 32 °F (0 °C).

How do I know when steak or a roast is done?

The same thermometer, plus one more thing: food keeps cooking after it leaves the heat. A steak rises a few degrees as it rests, and a large roast can rise by more. J. Kenji López-Alt’s The Food Lab explains this carryover cooking in detail. So take meat off a few degrees before your target and let it rest, loosely covered. Many cooks take steak off lower for a pinker centre; 145 °F is the safe minimum in the chart above.

How to tell when a cake or bread is done

Cakes and quick breads. A skewer pushed into the centre comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs, the top springs back when pressed lightly, and the edges pull away from the tin.
Bread. The crust is deeply coloured, and the loaf sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.
Cookies. The edges are set and lightly coloured while the centres still look a little soft. They firm up as they cool on the tray.
Custards and cheesecakes. The edges are set and the centre still wobbles slightly, like set jelly, when you nudge the dish.

Pasta, rice and vegetables

Pasta. Bite a piece. Al dente pasta is tender with a little resistance in the centre. If it will finish in the sauce, take it out a minute or two early.
Rice. The water has been absorbed and small steam holes show on the surface. Leave it covered off the heat for five to ten minutes before fluffing.
Boiled or steamed vegetables. A knife tip slides in with a little give. Green vegetables stay bright; once they turn olive, they’ve gone past.
Roasted vegetables. Tender all the way through with browned edges.

Sauces, onions and the stovetop

A sauce or gravy is thick enough when it coats the back of a spoon and a line drawn through it with a finger holds its shape.
Onions are soft when they turn translucent; golden and sweet when they’ve turned the colour of light caramel.
Toasted nuts and spices are ready when they darken slightly and turn fragrant. They go from toasted to burnt in under a minute, so stay at the pan.
Fish turns opaque and flakes easily with a fork; check it against 145 °F if you’re unsure.

If you’ve scaled the recipe or shared the oven

Changing the amount or the pan changes the timing. A doubled stew in a deeper pot needs longer; a half batch of brownies in a smaller tin needs less. The guide to scaling a recipe covers what doesn’t scale in a straight line. Two dishes in the oven at once also cook slower, which cooking two dishes in one oven explains. In both cases, the signs above still tell you when to stop.

Kre and the moment of checking

Cook with Kre goes by what you tell it and by its timers. When a timer ends, that means it’s time to check, not that the food is done. The checking stays yours: tell Kre “the chicken’s at 165” and it moves you to the next step, or tell it the chicken needs another ten minutes and it adjusts the rest of the plan. See how Kre cooks with you.

Sources

FoodSafety.gov, Safe Minimum Internal Temperatures
J. Kenji López-Alt, The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science (W. W. Norton, 2015), on carryover cooking and resting meat