When cooking and serving hot food you should focus on keeping the food above the appropriate temperature in order to kill the dangerous, food-poisoning bacteria. Food should be cooked thoroughly above 75 Celsius degrees. Cooked food should be kept and served at minimum 63 Celsius degrees. The ideal temperature spectrum for bacterial development is 24 - 40C. If hot food is served below 63 degrees, it should be consumed within two hours of cooking.