Regardless of what type of meat you’re cooking or how you’re cooking the meat, the biggest mistake you can make is overcooking it. Unfortunately, the required cooking time for each cut or piece of meat can vary greatly depending on the equipment used to cook it, the size of the meat, the starting temperature of the meat, and the ratio of meat to bone, etc. Therefore, it is very important to rely more heavily on the touch test or meat thermometers than general cooking time guidelines. Determining the doneness of meat is the most difficult part of any recipe, but luckily, it gets easier with practice.
Over time, you will be able to tell whether or not the meat is cooked through simply by smelling and looking at the meat. (Hint: The meat will be opaque in colour and it will have shriveled away from the bones.) Until then, you have the touch test and meat thermometers.
Although using a meat thermometer will give you precision (as long as it has been calibrated properly), you end up losing some of the meat juices when you poke it into the meat. You also end up with unsightly holes or tears in your meat. So I prefer to use the touch test. Below, I’ve shared three different variations of the touch test for checking the doneness of meat. Note that I have also heard this being called the “finger test”. Let me know if you know of any other touch methods.
Cooking with Alison 