When the smell of sizzling, charred steak is wafting through the air, it can be hard to delay any further gratification. You want to dive fork first into that juicy piece of meat and feast until you’re full. But before you make this backyard barbecue blunder, you should understand the importance of resting meat. Let’s explore. What happens to cooked meat? Cooking a piece of meat causes the proteins to ‘set’. The more cooked the meat, the more ‘set’ the proteins are, thus creating the variation in firmness between, say, a raw and well-done piece of meat. A meat thermometer can tell you exactly how cooked your piece of meat is, but most cooks pride themselves on being able to tell doneness using only the tong test. (Poke any steak with a pair of tongs and the amount of push-back will tell you its approximate doneness.) Why all meat should rest…
Why you should always ‘rest’ meat after cooking
