What’s the key to success in the kitchen? Whether you’re a home cook or a seasoned chef, one thing everyone could pay greater attention to is cooking temperatures. Sometimes, taking extra care with this particular aspect of a recipe can make all the difference to the end result.

A blue steak – also known as extra rare – should have an internal temperature of 50°C, and a rare steak 55°C. For medium rare, it should be cooked to 60°C, and for well done, it’s 70°C or higher, if that’s how you like it.

In fact, temperature is not to be taken lightly in the kitchen; it even defines the culinary lexicon. After all, what recipe doesn’t contain information about the kind of heat needed to cook a certain food?

Unless the recipe recommends gentle simmering, as is often the case with slow-cooked dishes such as boeuf bourguignon, you’ll often be encouraged to first turn up the stove to a high heat during the first step of the recipe, quickly searing the surface of the meat. Scientifically speaking, this causes proteins in the meat to coagulate.

It only lasts a few minutes, before the recipe calls for you to turn the heat back down. This is a type of cooking often used in Asian cuisine when dishes are seared in a wok.

On a low heat, slow cooking is appropriate for more delicate foods, as well as for recipes that require time to get a soft and melt-in-the-mouth texture, such as risotto. The Italian dish only becomes creamy if you take the time to cook the Arborio rice gently.

Low and slow means between 90°C and 120°C, or with power set between 1 and 3 on an electric hotplate. Low heat is also required to prepare custards, as the temperature of the dish should not exceed 82°C.

On medium heat, the pace gets stepped up, and the temperature setting is increased to 6. The aim is to get enough heat to cook the ingredients while avoiding damaging them with excessively high temperatures.

Kitchen disasters

Beware of kitchen disasters if you don’t follow the instructions! For example, if you burn chocolate while melting it, you risk ending up with a scorched and bitter-tasting cake. It’s better to use a low heat to melt chocolate in a bain-marie or double boiler setup.

But, if you’re making a dessert with a chocolate shell, you’ll have no choice but to follow the tempering guidelines outlined in many catering schools. Dark chocolate is melted at a maximum of 55°C, then lowered to 28 or 29°C and poured into the mold at 31 or 32°C.

Milk chocolate should not be heated above 50°C and is used at 29-30°C. If this process may seem highly technical – even if all you have to do is dip a thermometer in the chocolate – these instructions are essential for getting a shiny substance with no white traces.

In fact, tempering chocolate in this way helps separate the various molecules of the chocolate and restructure them in a well-ordered way, according to the Valrhona brand, which many chefs use to craft their desserts in restaurants.

Using the oven correctly

When cooking dishes in the oven, it’s also important to pay attention to the temperature. First, you should choose the correct type of heat: conventional or fan-assisted (convection).

In her book “La meilleure façon de manger,” Julie Andrieu addresses this thorny issue, which is rarely mentioned in cooking books. She explains that the fan oven setting, which “ensures a better distribution of heat”, is only recommended for smaller items (so, not the Christmas turkey!) – otherwise the ingredients will become dry.

Conventional or static heat – the icon with two horizontal lines, one on top of the other – generally has a power output 10° lower than fan-assisted or convection heat.

However, you should still monitor the internal temperature of certain pieces of meat. In fact, a thermometer is essential for obtaining melt-in-the-mouth results! Each type of meat has its own ideal internal temperature: 50/55°C for beef and lamb; 60°C for veal; 68°C for pork; and 74°C for chicken.

As for the cooking time, it all depends on the piece. For roast beef, traditionally, 500g generally requires 12 to 15 minutes of cooking in the oven. Veal takes longer to cook – between 20 and 25 minutes per 500g – and longer still for lamb (25 minutes per 500g).

If you don’t plan to buy a thermometer, there are some other tips for successfully cooking turkey come Christmastime. Place the dish on the bottom shelf, baste the meat frequently, and never heat it up in the microwave, as this could dry out the meat.

Finally, a word on one technique long hailed by many great chefs: low-temperature cooking. You might remember the hype surrounding the perfect egg: soft-boiled and still runny inside. The basis for this cooking method is to not exceed 65°C.

In the oven, the trick is not to exceed 100°C. This approach is perfect for preparing fish with delicate flesh, such as cod or sea bream; while for meat, it’s necessary to heat above at least 65°C to avoid the development of bacteria. Happy cooking!