Cooking: Is it cooked yet?

I know you've done it, I've done it myself - many times... You've poked it and prodded it, pricked it and cut it, stabbed it and sliced it, all to work out whether your meat is cooked the way you want it. But there's an easier way - use a meat thermometer.

Many people swear by them, others have had mixed results. But here's the reality about meat thermometers - if you don't know what temperature you need to cook your meat to, don't even bother getting the thermometer out of the kitchen drawer, because you may as well fly blind (or at least go back to more manual methods.)

More and more cookbooks are including the temperature readings for particular recipes, but for those occasions when you're not given a temperature, below is a handy Meat Temperature Chart to help you.

Things to remember:

• Always remember to insert the meat thermometer probe into the thickest part of the meat to get the most accurate reading.
• Once the meat has reached the first temperature on the chart, remove it from the oven and allow it to rest at room temperature for at least 15 minutes before you serve. This allows the juices to flow back into the meat, making it moister.

Click here for a printable version of our Meat Temperature Chart: