Jacks Cooking — Everyday home cooking technique | jackscooking.com
One set of targets covers the everyday kitchen: 74 °C for poultry, 71 °C for ground meat, 63 °C for whole cuts and fish.
Poultry is the simplest case because everything shares one number. Whole chickens and turkeys, breasts, thighs, drumsticks, wings and ground poultry all cook to an internal 74 °C (165 °F), measured at the thickest point clear of bone. No hold time is required once the reading arrives.
Whole cuts of beef, pork and lamb — steaks, chops and roasts — are safe at 63 °C (145 °F), with one condition attached: the meat must hold that temperature for 3 minutes before carving. In practice the hold happens during the rest, so a roast that sits 5-10 minutes after the oven satisfies it easily.
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Ground meat of any species needs 71 °C (160 °F). Grinding distributes surface contamination through the whole batch, so the centre of a burger or meatloaf must get hotter than the centre of a steak. Probe sideways into the middle of the patty for an honest reading.
Fish and shellfish are done at 63 °C (145 °F), measured at the thickest point of the flesh. Because fillets are thin, slide the probe in horizontally and wait for the digits to settle before judging.
Remember that a roast keeps rising 3-5 °C during a 5-10 minute rest, so large cuts can leave the oven a few degrees early and let carry-over heat close the gap. The full procedure for placing and reading the probe is in the thermometer doneness guide, and the rules for what happens to the leftovers are in the storage guide.
Further reading