Cutting into steak to check its doneness

It may be tempting to cut into your steak to see if it's done because the ideal cooking temperature has so much on the line. It is not recommended by Serious Eats, but potentially for the opposite reasons to what you might expect. According to a common myth about the ideal steak, piercing or cutting into a steak with a fork or knife is foolish and would cause it to flow juices all over the place (juices you'd much prefer to have in your mouth than on the plate). Serious Eats, however, discovered that piercing the steak does not truly cause it to lose moisture after investigating the validity of this well-known myth.

However, precision is a more crucial concern when slicing into a steak to determine whether it is done. Because carryover cooking will raise the steak's temperature even after it has left the pan, the steak will appear much rarer in the pan than it will on the plate. Consider buying a digital thermometer, as recommended by Serious Eats, rather than cutting into it to determine whether it is done.