During an episode of 2021’s Celebrity MasterChef, judge Melissa Leong dropped a pretty clever hack to help Rebecca Gibney with her steak cooking confidence. It’s a lesson that has stuck with us since we saw it play out, and one that we figured you’d get some use out of, too.
As Gibney worked on her steak prep, she revealed to Leong that her “husband’s the steak cooker in our family”. Leong responded by sharing a quick cooking hack that will help steak novices achieve the perfect result with their meat.
She used a term called touch-cooking, which refers to using touch to tell when your meat is done. And told Gibney, “If you’re not familiar with touch-cooking when it comes to meat…” The only thing you need to do is use your face as a guide.
Melissa Leong’s touch cooking steak hack
Leong touched different sections of her face and told Gibney that this is the tenderness you’re looking for when cooking steak to different levels.
She used her cheek as a guide for rare steak, her chin as a guide for medium-rare and her forehead as a guide for well-done.
Gibney was about as shocked by the simplicity of the hack as we are. Pretty incredible, no?
Obviously, you don’t want to be touching the crap out of your food when cooking, and you should always wash your hands properly before touching any food products, but using touch-cooking correctly can be a nice way to get a good sense of the stage your meat is at without religiously following your timer or meat-thermometer.
And if you’d like to continue learning about how to master the art of preparing and cooking a steak – here is a useful guide on seasoning next.
This article has been updated since its original publish date.
Lead Image Credit: Melissa Leong Instagram/iStock
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