How long do you cook food? Until it's ready, of course. But how do you know when that is, and how do you plan? For roast meat, you measure the temperature somewhere, but you still need some kind of rule of thumb to know roughly when the dish will be ready. Read cookbooks and you'll get an amazing variety of methods, many of them so different that you can't rely on any of them. On this page I'm collecting observations. It will grow, and I'll almost certainly adjust these numbers as I gain more experience.

Caveat coquus: much of this is specific to my ingredients and my equipment.

Meat

Hamburgers

On hot plate of barbecue, 7 minutes.

Roast beef

I believe that roast beef should be very rare in the middle, and that's what I'm basing these times on. I've had a lot of difficulty deciding the times. There's more in the roast beef recipe, but currently it boils down to: cook in a fan oven at 180° for about 50 minutes per kg, and take out when the temperature in the middle is about 53°.

Roast chicken

This is based on a chicken of about 2 kg. Cook for 50 to 55 minutes per kg and measure the temperature in the middle of the breast. If it's stuffed, take out when the temperature is 82°. Otherwise take it out when the temperature is 88°. The time should be pretty much the same. Many people measure at the top joint of the leg, where the temperature will be much lower, but I've found this to be unreliable: it's very easy to misplace the sensor, and that results in over or (usually) undercooking.

Breast at 88° is marginally overcooked. It's probably better to fill the chicken or to cover it with aluminium foil for most of the cooking time, then to remove and grill at the end.

Rack of lamb

Cook to 55° in a 200° fan-forced oven, about 30 minutes.

Roast pork

Conventional wisdom is that pork should be cooked to 80° to 85°. I find that a little high; 78° is probably better. I still need to check how long that takes; my first guess was about 50 minutes per kg at 180°, but on 19 February 2011 I tried that with a piece of meat weighing 500 g, and it took nearly an hour. This was in a compact oven without recirculation, so I raised the temperature to 200°, but it still surprised me. More investigation needed.

Thawing times

Ayam lemak

Microwave oven level 2 (at maximum). Level 3 melts the container. Try 5 minutes.

Hamburger patties

For two patties (240 g): 5 minutes at 220 W, rest a minute or two, 5 minutes at 110 W.

Hamburger buns

For two buns (175 g): 40 seconds at 1100 W.

Other cooking times

Roast peanuts

Try at 130° for 40 minutes.

Other links

• Garzeiten (Gemüse) from Rezepte-Wiki.