How to CookKitchen Hacks
The Easiest Way to Tell When Your Steak is Done
by Ali Slagle
• May 19, 2015
• 51 Comments
Inspired by conversations on the Food52 Hotline, we're sharing tips and tricks that make navigating all of our kitchens easier and more fun.
Today: Your face is only tool you need to tell if your steak is done.
There are more than a couple ways to check if your steak is done. Many people will tell you to stick an instant-read thermometer into your steak to see if it's done. But sometimes, you just can't find your thermometer—or you don't have one. Others may tell you to use the palm method, in which you compare the feeling of your steak with the meaty part of your palm when your thumb is touching various fingers (index being rare to pinky being well done). But I find it a bit difficult to tell the difference in palm fleshiness, and I'd rather use one hand to touch the steak for an accurate comparison.
Which brings us to an easy, straightforward method for telling if your steak is ready: Touch your face. Your forehead, chin, and cheek feel noticeably different, regardless of how thin or plump your face may be (indeed I fact-checked this by poking people's faces). So, with one hand pushing down on your steak, use the other to compare it to your forehead, chin, and cheek:
- If you'd like your steak medium-rare, it should feel like your cheek: tender and soft but still fleshy (as opposed to raw, which would be just soft).
- If you want a medium steak, touch your chin: The steak should still be tender, but with some resistance.
- For a medium-well steak, it should feel like your forehead: fleshy but with a good deal of resistance.
We hope you'll be spending lots of time in front of the grill in the coming months—ideally, poking your face. Your guests may presume it's an odd party trick, but they'll think otherwise when you bring them a very well-cooked steak.
Tell us: Besides steak, what else are you grilling this season?
Graphic by Tim McSweeney
Comments (51)
Showing out of comments
about 2 years ago Sergey Lucktinov
Just use one of these digital thermometers http://www.atlassteak.com...
over 2 years ago Roberta
Type 'Reverse Sear' into your search engine . I never cook a Steak using the Sear Sear Method anymore .
Reverse Sear gets my Medium Rare from edge to edge , and juicy too . Everyone I've told wouldn't go back !!
over 2 years ago kesypesy
This is amazing.
over 2 years ago Bob
This is new for me.
over 2 years ago hilbil
I try it tomorrow
over 2 years ago John
What a great idea.
over 2 years ago Chef Devaux
this is the strangest thing I have seen, the proper way is with a thermometer by temperature or the palm of your hand test
almost 3 years ago Kenneth McGinity
I think the point is missed. It didn't say touch your face every time. The reference is the softness of touch of your cheek, the firmness of your forehead. I like to use the thumb to fingers method to check doneness. Like others have said it's you preference on how you cook your steak. It's not a right or wrong.
almost 3 years ago Jim
With a meat thermometer.............
almost 3 years ago Gus Mueller
Slow your roll, Chris Burke as Corky. Nowhere in the article does it say not to wash your hands. Nowhere in the article does it say touch your steak and your face on the same day. Nowhere in the article does it say to use the same hand for the steak and your face.
You must be a delight at dinner parties.
almost 3 years ago Chris Fisher
This is UNSAT and Unsanitary. BOTH Board of Health and HACCP require you to wash after touching your face. To touch your face then touch anything else risks cross contamination and YES your face IS that dirty.
almost 3 years ago Wade Denesyk
I agree there is definitely NO compromise when the issue is food safety and sanitation.
almost 3 years ago Chris
I get my grill hot - put the steak on for about two minutes per side, and call it dinner. No thermomoeter needed, not comparisons to my own body parts.
almost 3 years ago BURT
If you want to make one perfect wall-to-wall medium rare for your pal, and one perfect medium for your other pal, you simply cannot go two minutes per side and call it good. The heat, the thickness, direct vs indirect- this all matters. For your tastes and from practice you could do that for your steak, but a good instant-read thermometer is a tool worth investing in for most people.
almost 3 years ago May
Really, Food52??? I loves ya, and you have some of the loveliest recipes, but sometimes you do come out with some doozers. This would be one of those times.
Get a good meat thermometer - Thermapen can be found inexpensively at ebay UK , for instance, and stop poking your face.
almost 3 years ago Cassandra
You won't be removing the steak from the very hot grill with your bare hands.
almost 3 years ago BURT
You wanna learn how to cook a steak correctly don't poke your hand or your chin, poke around at Amazing Ribs dot com. There is good information. Here is proof the Internet is full of misinformation and silliness.
almost 3 years ago Wade Denesyk
Not everyone knows how to cook. Let alone a steak. Why is it wrong for this site to post their opinion but okay for everyone else to post theirs? Some recipes I choose to incorporate into my repertoire, some I don't. Same as cooking techniques. Thanks for being a great resource Food52.
almost 3 years ago Kurt Michael Friese
It's not wrong. And it's not an opinion. The problem is that what they recommend here is unsanitary and any health department in the country would say so.
almost 3 years ago Wade Denesyk
Noted
almost 3 years ago Kristen Miglore
Kristen is the Creative Director of Food52
A reminder that we welcome constructive feedback and dialogue on Food52, but some of the conversation in this thread is not in keeping with that. We'll be removing any comments that violate our Terms. Cook your steak however you like to, and try this method for if you're lacking a thermometer—or just for fun! Here's to rooms of people poking at their faces, like we've been doing at Food52.
almost 3 years ago Bill Muirhead
What a load of crap this is! The only way of measuring how your meat is doing is a good fast read thermometer! I personally recommend Thermoworks! It has changed my way of grilling as well as bread making forever. Only thing I can think is that this guy was recruited from commercials, like "Chef Tony." from infomercials on early a.m. TV!
almost 3 years ago Ké
Dude..you clearly haven't been cooking for very long. I've done the "touch method" forever and my steaks are killer. Even Ramsey uses this method. Only load of crap is the one coming from your mouth, my darling.
almost 3 years ago Bill Muirhead
I gave up touching for accuracy about 40 years ago. Gordon Ramsey yells at people to encourage them... For most, that doesn't work either.
almost 3 years ago Maryann Smith
I'll say it out loud! What a crock of BS! Once again someone who has decided to hand a new rule while making assumptions. Who comes up with this dung?
I used to love this site but since you incorperated the shopping portion the cooking articles the site isn't worth opening the emails. This article broke the camel's back for me. Ali trying to defend the ridiculous premise reads like a preteen girl. My forehead as medium well, sorry but my forehead would be jerky. And not good jerky. There is a reason for the palm method. Even when due to illness and one is skeletal thin, the palm and fingers still have some flesh. If they didn't the story of Hansel and Gretel wouldn't exist. Yep this article did it for me. CYA!
almost 3 years ago David Burnside
They need a like button, so consider your comment liked.
almost 3 years ago Kurt Michael Friese
...as county health departments across the nation go berserk...
almost 3 years ago BURT
Unless you have some serious bugs on your finger, your worry isn't about being unsanitary. It mentions poke your face with one hand, the steak with the other. The surface of your steak is hot enough (to burn you) and to kills bugs within two seconds. Most would wash their hands before touching their food anyway, right?
almost 3 years ago Kurt Michael Friese
Incorrect. Every health department in the country has reg's that say you must wash your hands after touching your face. And no, the steak is not hot enough to kill the germs on your hand.
almost 3 years ago BURT
If you sear the steak, it is. You grab hot dogs and apples with bare hands and eat them. You poke your steak, and that's unsanitary? Your arguments are silly.
almost 3 years ago Kurt Michael Friese
My arguments are based on science and more than 3 decades in the foodservice industry, What you got?
almost 3 years ago BURT
Nice try. At what temp are these sperbugs on your fingers killed by heat? The microbes in hamburger are killed at 160F, no?. I suppose the surface of a steak on a hot grill remains in the range of 40-140F order for these bugs to proliferate? Now what you got?
almost 3 years ago Kurt Michael Friese
"2-301.14 When to Wash.
Food employees shall clean their hands and exposed portions of their arms as specified under § 2-301.12 immediately before engaging in food preparation including working with exposed food, clean equipment and utensils, and unwrapped single-service and single-use articlesP and:
(A) After touching bare human body parts other than clean hands and clean, exposed portions of arms;"
http://www.fda.gov/Food...
Hmmm, why do you suppose that is?
almost 3 years ago BURT
I don't want a chef touching their face and then my steak either. If a chef were to need to do this, he/she should not be a chef. But, this is hardly my point. And you're quite sarcastic for a professional, wouldn't you say? I want you to refute my science. A steak on a, say, 300* grill, has a surface temp at or approaching 300. Tell me what bug will live in that? Touching your steak will no more harm you than touching the apple you're eating. Of note is that you are crossing food sanitary regulations for a professional foodservice kitchen with the backyard grillmaster, which is whom this article is speaking to. MY point is that it won't be "unsanitary", which by definition means: "unhealthy or unhealthful; tending to harbor or spread disease". Hardly the case in this context. Now, that said, do I agree you should touch your steak to tell its doneness? No way! Silly! But is it unsafe or unsanitary? Hardly.
almost 3 years ago Kurt Michael Friese
If you touch any surface that is 300 degrees you will burn your finger. 150f for 2 seconds is sufficient to produce minor burns. The surface that is face down on the grill is 300. When you turn it, the top surface cools rapidly.
Also, presumably, when you are cooking a steak on a backyard grill, you are doing so for more than just yourself. It's a simple matter of best practices. Besides, as so many others have noted here, a thermometer is both more sanitary and more accurate.
almost 3 years ago BURT
I agree with the majority of this comment. Best practices, yes. Thermometers, absolutely yes! Touching your face, no. But...you claimed in your first comment that I'm "incorrect". You haven't proven how that is true, or was that just a knee-jerk reaction because you presumed I was just another uneducated schlub? We can agree that this article is whimsy, that it's certainly not best practice, but for kicks and grins and parlor tricks you could poke your face if you absolutely insisted and it will not be unsanitary if you cook your steak on a hot grill, especially if you wash your hands first, and as the article says- touch your face with one hand, the steak with the other. Otherwise, cut it open and peek or wing it.
almost 3 years ago Kurt Michael Friese
It will take about 30 seconds for the upward surface of the steak to dive to below 150f after being turned to that upward position. Thus germs can and will survive upon it. Your hands have presumably touched at least the tongs to are using, not to mention the handle on the grill cover, your beer, and the hand you shook of the guy who just arrived at your party. Cross-contamination is sneaky. Not worth the risk.
almost 3 years ago BURT
Thank goodness we all have an immune system. I for one reverse sear my steaks, they get a sear on both sides before plating. Great practice.
Showing 38 out of 51 comments