Saturday, October 12, 2013

SALMONELLA?...WE KNEW HER

Experts and chefs ( including Julia) warn us about the handling of raw poultry products. But I wondered about "fresh frozen" chicken and turkey..."Does the Salmonella 'die' when it's frozen?" I asked hopefully. The USDA say, "Nope, sorry, studies shows it might be a bit degraded but still present." Evidently the only way around this is to do what is recommended by the experts, handle carefully and cook thoroughly.
 I like Julia Child's idea of laying down newspapers on the counter, using a plastic or non porous cutting surface and rolling up all the paper towels and packaging into the newspaper when you are done and chucking it all in the garbage. Then it's just a matter of washing everything thoroughly in soapy hot water (sometimes I add bleach but I don't know if that really makes a difference). When you think of all the chicken and turkey we've eaten in our lives...
We used to have Fircrest brand chicken in Oregon...it was the main brand and it was a small Oregon company and I don't recall any "scares". It's only with the big chain stores that we've gone to Foster Farms. Even Costco uses Foster Farms. I heard they just threw out 40,000 pounds of rotisserie chicken!
So I guess the "Looks done to me!" test for chicken and turkey doesn't cut it...back to using my instant read thermometer on stove top or baked chicken and not trusting the pop up on the turkey breast...I'll stick in my meat thermometer from now on. 

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