The temperatures and keeping times every recipe here is written to.

Cooking temperatures

Every recipe containing poultry, minced meat or fish records the internal temperature it is cooked to, and shows it beside the method. The figures come from the Food Safety Information Council's safe cooking temperatures table, the same table the CERNERE cookbooks use, so a reader moving between a book and this site meets one number.

Poultry, whole or minced

75°C / 167°F in the centre

Minced meat, hamburgers, sausages

75°C / 167°F in the centre

Fish fillets

around 63°C / 146°F, or when the flesh flakes

Egg dishes

72°C / 162°F, or white firm and yolk thickening

Poultry and mince share one figure. The table gives 75°C in the centre for poultry whole or minced and for minced red meat, hamburgers and sausages alike, because in all of them whatever was on the surface can be anywhere in the mass. That is also the figure for reheated food, which is why this site prints one number for getting food hot rather than two.

Whole cuts of beef, lamb and pork are not given a single endpoint, because the source does not give one: contamination on a whole cut is on the surface, so it asks for the outside well browned and gives 63°C medium rare, 71°C medium and 77°C well done as a guide to taste, with a rest of three to five minutes. That is a preference, not a safety threshold, so those recipes describe the result rather than dictating a number.

Prawns and other shellfish are not given an endpoint either, because the table does not cover them. The recipes that use prawns describe the change in the flesh instead.

Colour is not a doneness test. Meat can brown before it is safe and stay pink after it is. The same guidance recommends a thermometer, and so do we — an instant-read probe is the cheapest piece of equipment in this kitchen that changes an outcome.

Source: Food Safety Information Council (Australia). Safe cooking temperatures. Verified 16 September 2026.

Eggs

Several recipes here are better with a soft yolk, and they say so. A soft yolk is also not fully cooked, and the guidance is specific about who should avoid one: children under 2, people who are pregnant, people over 70, and anyone whose immune system is low or suppressed.

That last group is not a footnote on a site like this one. Immune-modifying medicines are ordinary treatment for psoriasis, inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid conditions, and a reader on one of them is exactly who might arrive at a recipe here. So every recipe with a soft or poached yolk carries the note, and every one of them works with the yolk cooked through.

Fully cooked, by the published cue, means the white completely firm and the yolk beginning to thicken. Eggs are kept in the fridge in their carton, and cracked or dirty ones are not used.

Source: NSW Food Authority. Eggs. NSW Government. Retrieved 30 August 2026.

Keeping and reheating

Every recipe's keeping time is computed from what is in the dish rather than set by hand, so two recipes with the same ingredients cannot disagree.

Most cooked dishes

3 days refrigerated

Dishes with cooked rice, pasta or couscous

2 days refrigerated

Reheat to

steaming hot right through, at least 75°C in the centre, once only

Fridge

below 5°C at all times

Freezer

up to 3 months; defrost in the fridge, use within 24 hours

There used to be a third line here saying that toast, eggs, pancakes and wraps should be eaten the same day. It has been removed, because no source supports it and it was doing damage in both directions. The guidance below gives two figures and no third: three days, and two where cooked rice or pasta is involved. One day was our judgement about texture wearing a safety number's clothes.

It also hid the useful information. Sardines on toast said one day because of the toast, which told a reader nothing about the sardines and quietly implied the fish was the problem. The toast going soft is real, and it is a cooking note, not a food-safety one. So those recipes now carry the sourced keeping time for what is actually in them, and say separately which part will not be as good tomorrow and what to do about it — usually keep the topping and toast fresh bread.

Cool it fast. The regulatory cooling curve is 60°C down to 21°C within two hours and on to 5°C within four more; at home that means splitting a large batch into shallow containers as soon as it stops steaming and having it in the fridge within two hours. Splitting is not tidiness — it is the thing that gets the middle of the food out of the danger zone before bacteria get going. Reheat once only: the 60°C that appears in business guidance is a hot-holding threshold, not a reheating endpoint, and this site does not use it as one.

The 2-hour/4-hour rule covers food left out. Under two hours, use it or refrigerate it. Between two and four, use it now or throw it out. Past four hours, throw it out. The clock is cumulative across every time the food has been between 5°C and 60°C, not reset each time it goes back in the fridge.

Raw meat, fish and eggs are stored covered on the bottom shelf, below anything cooked or ready to eat, so nothing can drip onto food that will not be cooked again.

Sources: NSW Food Authority. Leftovers. NSW Government. Retrieved 30 August 2026., NSW Food Authority. Safe food storage. NSW Government. Retrieved 30 August 2026., Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Cooling and reheating food (Standard 3.2.2 clause 7, business guidance). Verified 16 September 2026. and Food Safety Information Council (Australia). Safe cooking temperatures. Verified 16 September 2026. for the 75°C reheating figure

Marinating

Marinating happens in the fridge, covered. An hour on the bench is an hour of raw meat in the temperature range bacteria grow fastest in, and it buys nothing: acid and salt work perfectly well cold, they just take a little longer.

What this page is not

This is the standard the recipes are written to, drawn from Australian government consumer guidance. It is not a substitute for that guidance, and it does not cover commercial food handling, preserving, canning, curing, fermenting or sous vide — none of which this site publishes recipes for. If you are cooking for someone whose immune system is compromised, their clinical team's advice comes first.