Stuffing in a Chook and dangers!!!!!!

[Buccaneer]

I stuffed a chook with a sage mix and I got salmonella and died, Davey Jones' locker.
I'm only here in spirit.
Sous Vide: science; cook chicken and hold at 53 C for 8 minutes and pasteurisation is complete.
Latest food science: poultry 49C for ten minutes and salmonella is killed, poultry is safe to consume.

[mcwazza]

RIP

[Smokey]

Depends on what you consider over cooked Fib.

Oh well, I can see this devolving into another argument about chicken cooking temperatures. I don't want to go there.

Sorry Fib, wasnt directed at how you like chicken, More how I like chicken. as the rest of the context shows
Also, I thought this was a discussion about chicken cooking teperatures and what to do with stuffing in a CHICKEN

Buc & Fib,
Those temps are very well and good, even scientific and all.
But for me only any good for pure breast meat. Anything else and my gagg meter goes into overdrive.
Nobody I know will eat chicken with red meat around the bones. Safe or not.
If I cook my stuffing up to over 83C and still like the chicken, Is there anything wrong with that?
If I "Liked" it at 57C for eight minuts of course the stuffing will be full of red blood and could make you sick,,, or dead.

[Buccaneer]

Depends on what you consider over cooked Fib.

Oh well, I can see this devolving into another argument about chicken cooking temperatures. I don't want to go there.

Sorry Fib, wasnt directed at how you like chicken, More how I like chicken. as the rest of the context shows
Also, I thought this was a discussion about chicken cooking teperatures and what to do with stuffing in a CHICKEN

Buc & Fib,
Those temps are very well and good, even scientific and all.
But for me only any good for pure breast meat. Anything else and my gagg meter goes into overdrive.
Nobody I know will eat chicken with red meat around the bones. Safe or not.
If I cook my stuffing up to over 83C and still like the chicken, Is there anything wrong with that?
If I "Liked" it at 57C for eight minuts of course the stuffing will be full of red blood and could make you sick,,, or dead.

I'm helping and reporting on the facts, I'm not judging you or anyone else on how they have to eat chicken Mick, if you think back I am the same with steaks.
I cook how I like them, and I defend anyone else's right to their preference and I cook to how my guest likes them.
With chicken, we have narrow parameters for preference because we all grew up that way.
Asians didn't, they cook chooks perfectly IMO (subjective) and I now prefer my chook to cut silky like glass with moisture beads and to have blood flecks along the bone.
I cant cook 'em how I like them, I always cook way over that, but I keep trying.
If I were to cook chook for you, I'd cook it till it is fall apart and hope to see you happy!
No worries.
There is no argument or valid position, there is only the facts on safety then it is all about preference.

My best tip on stuffing is cook it and load it hot or cook it separate.

[Amfibius]

Well Mick I am not going to argue with you. If you like your chicken at 83C that is your preference and that is fine with me

All I am saying is - stuffing slows down your cooking. The longer it takes for stuffing to get up to temperature, the more dangerous it is. ONE of the byproducts of being forced to raise the temperature of the chicken quickly is ... overcooked chicken. I think the first part of my argument (that stuffing contributes an unacceptable microbiological risk) can not be disputed, because it is true. If you disagree that the chicken is overcooked, well you disagree.

[Smokey]

Cool, I can respect your views. Both your views in the past have opened my mind to many things.
Im not trying to have a fight type argument.

[Amfibius]

Thanks Mick

[chrisg]

Hmm,

I've always pre-cooked my stuffing anyway, usually just sage, garlic and onion, but whilst chickens can be rather dirty creatures what we buy are pretty good these days.

I partly grew-up with a grandfather who raised deep-litter chickens, they were cooked in a Rayburn in the main, with cooked stuffing and no one ever fell ill. I think a part of it is possibly the onion, its anti-bacterial properties are pretty good, but I put garlic in as well and that is superb at killing bugs.

But with chicken I always cook initially on a high heat, talking charcoal here, as another thread notes I'm new to gas. With charcoal starting from very hot and the fire slowly falling in temp you get the advantage of a quick searing through the bird pretty much so transition that danger zone quickly, and you get good crispy skin. Needs a bit of foil protection on the extremities of course but that's usually a good idea anyway.

The old prick test for clear juices at the joints is always the best gauge of if a chook is cooked through anyway.

I can say hand-on-heart that over four decades of cooking most every week and sometimes every day I've never poisoned anyone.

I can't say the same for some foods I've eaten when out though

We humans are pretty sensitive to what is not good for us, if it doesn't smell right it probably isn't

It's a good warning though, slow cooking is something I never do with poultry, other meats no problem.

Cheers

[urbangriller]

The old prick test for clear juices at the joints is always the best gauge of if a chook is cooked through anyway.

Cheers

At BBQ School, I make a point of showing the students clear juices running from a bird that is not cooked through.

Clear juices is not a measure of doneness.

Cheers
Chris

[Captain Cook]

I stuffed a chook with a sage mix and I got salmonella and died, Davey Jones' locker.
I'm only here in spirit.
Sous Vide: science; cook chicken and hold at 53 C for 8 minutes and pasteurisation is complete.
Latest food science: poultry 49C for ten minutes and salmonella is killed, poultry is safe to consume.

Bucc
Please don't use yellow or light colours when trying to highlight a point, it makes it very difficult to read

Captain

[Bear]

I have to agree with some of the posts here, I don't like to stuff poultry because of the danger. I only very occasionally stuff - with a hot boiled lemon or two, traditional stuffing type recipe between the skin & the breast or half stuff (not pack it in tight) leaving an air gap then roast in the wood oven. Coming from a commercial cooking background, traditional stuffing methods are not worth the risk IMO.

I agree with Chris, don't trust the clear juices. Always temp test that bird, in multiple places.

[chrisg]

Now I've never seen that UG, it was just the way I grew up cooking chicken, interesting, must admit its my second test though, meat thermometer first in the meat. But, never cooked a chook low and slow, the kind of heat I use in my kettle is probably similar to what my grandparents used in their Rayburn.

Their procedure was grandfather would go decapitate a bird that was annoying him, usually an older one, much older than we usually cook these days. The chook was then plucked, cleaned and hung for a few days then grandmother took over and cleaned the bird off, made hot stuffing whilst grandfather stoked up the Rayburn.

The last was probably the reason the birds were always well cooked, it was a family joke, he'd sit by the thing and feed the firebox until the water was boiling in the pipes. (If you know Rayburns you probably know they used to sit at the centre of the house and were connected to the hot water system as well as being all you need for cooking.)

A lot of things different to today I guess, granddad's chickens were deep-litter, which in England at least meant a ramshackle structure of box wood, the floor was covered in regularly changed sawdust and there were perches all over the place and the chickens had free run to a large open area where they could scratch around and were fed grain daily. It made for happy chickens, lots of eggs and birds that lived a decent life to get nice and big before heading for the table. Consider, a single bird could feed a hungry family of four or more adults and a couple of kids, with lots of veg, for a Sunday lunch - try that with these six week old hormone drenched sparrows we get offered

The high heat in the Rayburn undoubtedly destroyed any bugs as soon as the bird went in.

However, I doubt there was much to kill, raising chickens that way was a world away from the meat factories of today.

I should mention that my grandfather was half Romany, grew up on the land, used to break horses before and after being near-killed in the trenches of WWI a couple of times. He lived well into his nineties and apart from one flirt with double pneumonia that persuaded him 60 cigs a day at 60 was possibly not doing him much good so he sweated it out and quit, he was never really ill- just limped a bit from the lump of shrapnel embedded in his hip that made his urn rattle when I took his ashes to their final resting place.

I guess they don't make men like that so much any more

Someone also mentioned Asians and their way of cooking chicken.

I've a very good friend, Singaporean Chinese, who lives in Adelaide. We used to work together and traveled on business a lot. Both of us preferred to stay in apartments so we could cook for ourselves for a lot of meals, you do get tired of restaurant food. It was always a friendly competition, him cooking incredible Asian dishes one night, me doing something more Western, Italian quite a bit, the next.

The first time he cooked a Chicken Laksa I was somewhat bemused. From the school of Chinese cooking he came from you put the whole bird in a big pot of water, bring it to the boil and then put the lid on tight and turn the heat off.

It's how they get that plump white bird and kill all the bugs although I've no doubt the fiery spices are double insurance.

That method can also be phase one of twice cooked chicken, let it cool than a quick roast to get the alternative, really crispy chicken, well oiled for stage two of course.

He's never even vaguely poisoned anyone and we were often in less than sanitary countries buying food in the markets.

To each their own, but I'd suggest the real reason we see occasional food poisoning from poultry is a combination of factors.

The horrendous way most chickens are farmed these days, the age of the birds, before they even have a chance to develop an immune system they are headed for the table, careless meat handling across all the stages of getting to the table, including in the kitchen, the time the meat spends frozen and the way they are presented to us in supermarkets in particular. Those open cold racks are all very well but the meat is not exactly at optimum storage temperature depending upon where in the rack it is and gets moved to let alone the handling by potential buyers.

If I can find someone around here who raises and sells free-range chickens I'll try a low and slow cook, but I don't think I will with supermarket bought.

Cheers

Edit: Oh, I just realised that neither of us specified where to check for clear juices - I always check right at the leg joints, if it is clear there and the leg pretty much falls off then I'll deem the bird cooked and never seen red around the bones that way of checking.

[travelling_gerry]

The problems with chickens is not how they are raised, its how they are processed.

Back in the day they were plucked and gutted by hand.

Now, with the need for a processing plant to do maxiumum numbers with minimal labour, most of the work is done mechanically and gutting a chook in a modern processing factory, they basically blow the guts out with compressed air. So consequently when guts get busted you get a bacterial load on the inside of the chook.

The allowable levels of bacteria on chicken meat is about 30 times more than allowed on red meats (10x8 as compared to 10x5)

All meat is essentially sterile, its only when we start taking the skins off, putting shit on it, touching it and exposing it to the outside environment that we start adding bacterial load.

[chrisg]

That's scary Gerry - never been in a chicken processing plant but it makes total sense - I've always been of the view from upbringing that hand prep is the only way with most meat but especially poultry be it farm raised or game, but I guess KFC, McChuck, Red Rooster, Chicken Threat et al would have demand way exceed supply.

Not sure if you are covering all the possibilities though given the way Salmonella got into eggs via the oviopository of chickens infected by contaminated feed.

There is so much filth in food these days it could drive you back to just raising your own, in fact I have been thinking of it...

Cheers

[travelling_gerry]

Yes Chris, very true on the eggs. Though they "say" we dont have enteric salmonella here in Australia, the nature of feed in free range and barn eggs makes me steer away from those and eat only cage eggs due to their clean feed.

The issue of animal welfare in those current "sexy" raising claims is a whole other issue