Memorial Day: Stick It In to verify the burger is cooked
I already caused a mini cow-poop storm when I suggested U.S. President Obama and VP Biden should be ordering their burgers based on a tip-sensitive thermometer verified 160F, and not the vague and meaningless, medium-whatever.
But food porn will always trump food safety.
So when the Obama Foodorama person wrote about turkey burgers today, there was no mention of temperature (in this case – 165F). There was 900 words of food porn – seriously, get an editor – and the cooking instructions consisted of:
“In a deep skillet, heat a small amount of neutral cooking oil on medium heat, almost to the smoking point. Put in four burger balls to cook at a time, and flatten down with a spatula. Cook for 3 minutes and flip, and cook an additional 3 minutes on the other side. In the last 30 seconds of cooking, pop Munster cheese slices on burgers, and cover pan so it melts.”
That has nothing to do with final end-point temperature, the temperature that kill the microorganisms that make people barf. Enjoy the Memorial Day holiday. And Stick It In for safety.
http://barfblog.foodsafety.ksu.edu/admin/trackback/135432
In watching the video on how to properly cook a hamburger, I noticed a couple of things of concern.
While it is a good idea to wash your hands often during preparation of food to reduce cross contamination, it would be even better if you were not washing your hands in the sink with clean dishes within splashing distance of your soap and water.
I also noticed that in the haste to show the method of placing the burgers in the frying pan and turning them over to obtain the desired interior temperature of 160F, the frying pan appeared to be a non-stick type pan with little or no teflon surface protection left. What about this contamination?
Edouart