Animal protein coagulates when it is heated to 160°F.
I am an omnivore, I enjoy eating the variety that being an omnivore offers; and I know that when I prepare flesh I have a moral obligation not to waste what that animal has provided; I try never to ignore that the trout was alive, and that because I wanted to eat it it is dead; now let’s get on with it.The flesh of that trout is fully cooked when it reaches that temperature, if I heat it higher I am drying it and I driving off flavor. The craft of cooking is knowing what is going on with the food, deciding how it will be, how it should be. Trout flesh is delicate, the flavor is subtle; that is why I eat it, that is why I will not destroy the texture or the flavor. I try to slightly undercooked fish, I think that it is better that way; and as cook that is my decision; I know how to slightly under-cook it.
This would be a good place to put in the first thing that I do when I am about to prepare a cooked meal; I turn the oven on to its lowest temperature, somewhere around 140°; I put all the plates and serving dishes in the warm oven, leave them there. When the trout is cooked I put it on the plates, then put them back in the oven while I complete whatever else I am cooking. Get it out of the way first, the oven will hold it, that 140° won’t overcook it. Oven thermometers cost about $5; use one to find the low temperature that the oven can hold, use it to check the accuracy of the thermostat; home ovens can vary as much as 50° from what is indicated, restaurant ovens usually hold to with 3 or 4°. After I learned how to do this well I learned how to cook several dishes simultaneously, but in the beginning do one thing, then move to the next, that warm oven is your very good assistant.If it is a Thanksgiving turkey I will want it finished 3 or 4 hours before the meal, get rid of the hassle of waiting for the bird, there are other things to be done, the pressure of preparation is lessened. I can remember a summer event at Ravinia Festival when I was told to cook half a dozen beef tenderloins, make them rare, and then I was told to hold them for what turned out to be 2 hours, hold them at that state. It was tricky to do, but was good practice, especially as we were outside, using charcoal grills, metal cabinets and Sterno. If any guest wanted beef cooked more, it was done by throwing a piece on the still hot fire and bringing it to medium rare or well-done state.
As an exercise in learning how to do this-fry an egg: Put the pan with oil or Teflon over a low heat, allow the pan to warm before carefully breaking an egg into the center of the pan, watch what is happening. The white of the egg will go from clear to milky-white slowly, the demarcation line between the clear and the white is the 160° line. Touch the clear with your fingertip, then touch the cooked white; remember the difference in resilience between the two. This is important; this is something that cooks do with fish, with chops, roasts; they touch it to gage the temperature. And they use that little thermometers that carry their breast pockets.
I’ll write more about judging and knowing; but I think that it is important to say here that this is start of the true fun of cooking, this is beyond recipe, beyond what the guests think of the meal; this is the beginning of the feeling that comes from knowing that food has been made the way you have decided it should be made, this feeling lasts long after the last dish has been washed, the last pot scoured, this is the feeling that is private. And the next time you make that bird you will make it just slightly differently, you will have been thinking about how to do it better, you will be looking forward to doing it again, and then again; and with respect to that animal.
This is my first attempt on this subject; I can feel that it is stiff and preachy, not what I intended, but it is what I have for my first attempt; perhaps tomorrow I will try again, having thought for a day what I want to put down here.