What Bobby Flay Really Thinks About Food Thermometers

Bobby Flay is known for his grilling prowess — the guy definitely knows his way around the grates of the world's gas and charcoal grills. If you have your own 10 Commandments of Grilling on Food Network, as the cookbook author and culinary media personality does, it's fair to claim that your skills, such as they pertain to this cooking method, surpass those of mere mortals.

But how can mortals at least attempt to cook like Flay? On an episode of his "Always Hungry" podcast that he hosts with his daughter Sophie, the chef dug into his pantry, along with his kitchen cabinets and drawers to reveal the essential ingredients and kitchen tools he always has on hand in order to, as Sophie said, "set yourself up for success."

Needless to say, when you're a celebrity chef, you have a lot of stuff ordinary cooks don't, but the segment also gave insight into Flay's approach to cooking, especially when it comes to using a cooking thermometer. The Iron Chef shared with listeners that he has a container next to his stove of all the items he uses with great frequency, and among his spatulas, whisks, wooden spoons, and zester is not one, but two cooking thermometers. Sophie admitted to her dad that she doesn't have a meat thermometer –or 75% of the stuff her dad has, so Flay explained why she needs one.

In the podcast episode, Bobby Flay said the only way to know if a food is fully cooked is by checking it, which is why you need a thermometer. He shared with his daughter Sophie Flay that he has both an instant-read thermometer and a deep-fry thermometer, and he really likes each of them for different reasons. Flay explained his split affection for the two to Sophie, saying, "The thing about the deep fry ones is that you can submerge it, the whole thing, in the oil and it will actually attach to the pot that you're cooking/heating the oil up in." Bustle notes that deep fry thermometers are generally made of stainless steel to withstand the high temperatures required to fry foods.

But Flay is also a friend of the instant-read thermometer. He described how it works to his daughter saying, "You probe whatever the meat is and then it tells you in the next few seconds what the temperature is." And even though they sound like the same thing, Flay said, "They do somewhat the same thing, but they're different." Of course, this isn't the first time Flay has lamented the virtues of this kitchen must-have. In fact, his love affair with the thermometer goes back to at least 2012, when the Le Creuset thermometer made his Today.com list of favorite "manly kitchen gadgets."