Top Chef: Medium-rare lamb is 140F and soy sauce is the secret ingredient in perfect gravy
Jennifer and daughter Ingrid brought the lamb, I did the cooking, and Amy’s mom flew in from Vegas. Another Thursday night in Manhattan (Kansas).
What better occasion to try out alleged perfect gravy that scientists with the U.K. Royal Society of Chemistry have determined contains drippings from a roast on a bed of halved onions, carrots and celery and the left-over water from boiled cabbage.
Add salt, pepper and a sprinkling of flour to thicken and … a touch of soy sauce.
Dr John Emsley, a chemical scientist, says soy sauce should be used in place of traditional gravy browning because monosodium glutamate from the soy sauce brings out the meaty flavour.
A spokesman for the society said:
“Chemistry and cooking are basically the same thing. Both need to have the correct formula, equipment and procedures. Just think of Heston Blumenthal.”
Eww. Blumenthal makes me think norovirus and barf.
And I didn’t take pictures of Thursday’s dinner, but Top Chef on Wed. night also struggled with lamb, and none of the hot-shot chefs could agree on how to define medium-rare lamb.
Chef Kevin (left):
“We’re having temperature issues with the lamb. What I think of as medium-rare, is apparently what she thinks of as rare. I don’t know who’s right or wrong, I don’t know if there is anyone who is right or wrong.”
The judges knew:
“This was seared raw lamb that was horrible.”
“Severely underdone.”
“Center was like jello.”
“A little too bloody.”
The lamb shoulder roast we had last night was cooked to 140F. There’s even a chart on the Internet that says medium-rare lamb is 140F. I have no idea where the numbers on the chart came from, but it seems about right.
Genius chefs and judges: use a tip-sensitive digital thermometer and stick it in.
The gravy was delicious.
Hamburger doesn't have to be shoe leather -- stick it in
The editorial dudes at the N.Y. Times write in an, uh, editorial, that eating a hamburger should not be a death-defying experience.
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Too often it is. As Michael Moss wrote in The Times recently, E. coli sickens thousands of people annually, including a young dance teacher named Stephanie Smith, who was paralyzed after eating a contaminated hamburger. Her case offers a poignant reminder that President Obama and Congress need to quickly fill the safety gaps in food production. …
Already too much of the burden for food safety falls on consumers who are advised to cook hamburgers into shoe leather to kill off any dangerous germs. But even that is not enough because it is too easy for raw ground beef to leave behind toxic traces in the kitchen.
Cross-contamination is a serious issue, as repeatedly pointed out on this blog and in our research. But no one has to cook to shoe leather. Live confidently with a meat thermometer, and stick it in until 160F.
Food preparer Gordon Ramsey is boring, ineffective and inaccurate
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The National Hockey League season debuted on Thursday, and all 30 teams played on Saturday, including games in Finland and Sweden, the later featuring a ceremonial puck dropping by one of Heston Blumenthal’s love fathers, former Toronto Maple Leaf Mats Sundin.
The less I play hockey, the more I watch, which is somewhat sad. But it is fun to watch various coaching styles. The yellers never prosper, because after awhile, the players just don’t respond to the yelling.
Struggling microbiologist and food preparer Gordon Ramsey is an “,” and that’s probably why people watch him. But he’s a lousy coach.
Gonzalo sent me this youtube clip from Hell’s Kitchen last week, demonstrating coach Ramsey’s unique take on determining whether chicken, and later fish, is cooked or not.
About 1:25 minutes into the clip, Ramsey puts his slimy hands on some chicken and declares,
“Pink bloody chicken. That one is cooked, that one is raw.”
And Ramsey does a full Baby Huey by kicking a garbage can; that’s what happens when the yelling doesn’t work.
Gordon, baby, color is a lousy indicator of whether a piece of chicken is cooked or not. This picture of chicken courtesy of Pete Snyder (left), has been cooked to the required 165 F. Stick it in, man. And stop being so boring.
Stick it in to tell if a hamburger is safe - with a thermometer; color and poking and pieces of metal are unreliable
Sorenne did not sleep last night.
There was seemingly nothing to console her, and I was up much of the night.
But I’m getting some payback now as she enters the third hour of her nap, and decided a homemade hamburger with grilled corn and salad would make a decent lunch for myself. Coupled with the season premier of Californication on the recorderer, I was set.
Except I didn’t have Californication because I can’t tape it until tonight because Amy just had to watch and tape the season premier of The Amazing Race in case she missed a minute of the zzzzzzzzzzzz action.
And then I got this how-to-cook-a-hamburger advice by the geniuses at epicurious, forwarded by my friend Mike.
James Oliver Cury reveals his burger snobbery by suggesting those in search of a medium-rare burger – whatever that is – avoid “low-end” eateries because high-end eateries use higher quality beef and “preparation methods are superior: clean, safe, reliable.”
Guess he’s never heard of The Fat Duck.
In a linked story about burgers, the poke test for doneness is promoted:
“Medium-rare is softly yielding, medium is semifirm, well-done is firm."
Another says he prefers the visual approach, judging by the juices:
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"When they start to come out of the top of the burger, it's medium. When the juices that have oozed out of the top get cooked (stop looking red and become a bit more clear), it's medium-well."
A tip-sensitive thermometer is the only accurate way to determine whether a hamburger has been safely cooked to 160F.
Sorenne woke up before I could finish this, so I changed the TV in the background to something more child-friendly than, No Country For Old Men – Goodfellas was on AMC -- and safely fed her some leftovers.
Kate Gosselin: use a meat thermometer and maybe you won't give your kids Salmonella poisoning
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Earlier this week on Jon and Kate plus 8, or whatever it’s called, newly single Kate took to the grill for apparently the first time and was terrified of poisoning her brood.
“Dear chicken, please do not give us sammonella. Love Kate.” (Salmonella -- dp)
Cara gets bloody chicken. Kate laughs this off and says “oops” in the interview chair. … Ashley confirms the raw chicken.
Stick it in. And don’t poison your kids.
Hamburgers and how to tell if they're done - the Netherlands version
A bites-barfblog reader from the Netherlands sent along this 2008 video, which has an English-speaking bit with a self-proclaimed hamburger professor in New York (New Amsterdam?) demonstrating the touch-the-hand method of determining whether a hamburger is properly cooked (note: this technique is complete BS).
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The technique in question appears about five minutes in.
Evan Henke: For the Jucy Lucy and stuffed burgers, the food safety jury is still out
Evan Henke, a student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health (right, sorta as shown), writes in this guest barfblog.com post:
During a recent trip to a Minneapolis restaurant, I ordered what is perhaps Minneapolis’s most significant contribution to the culinary world: the “Jucy Lucy.”
Legend has it that the Lucy, a hamburger with cheese stuffed inside of the beef patty before cooking (right, not exactly as shown), was invented in Minneapolis, although debate still rages as to which burger joint was the first to offer the Lucy to its customers. As I bit into the Lucy, I noticed that the center of the burger was quite undercooked, and I did not notice the use of a thermometer on the nearby grill. I immediately wondered what effect stuffing the cheese inside of the patty had on the survival of foodborne pathogens during the cooking process.
Maybe the added weight of the cheese would better insulate the side of the burger exposed to the surface grill compared to cooking a normal patty of equal thickness without flipping. Maybe any added moisture in the cheese would help kill any pathogen present in the beef, as long as the moisture was present.
But the true food safety implications of stuffing a ground beef patty with cheese or other ingredients are not well documented (left, not exactly as shown). The amounts of fat and water that escape from the cheese during cooking are not documented, and how those amounts affect the survival of foodborne pathogens present in the patty is unclear. It has been documented that E. coli O157:H7 shows increased resistance to heat in patties with higher fat and lower moisture contents[1]. It is possible that the composition of a stuffed burger, depending on the stuffing and fat and moisture content of the ground beef, could favor the survival of foodborne pathogens relative to a burger with no stuffing.
In a world of foods that taste delicious but can be deleterious to your health, the Jucy Lucy and stuffed burgers sizzle in mystery. How the addition of cheese to the center of the patty affects the survival of foodborne pathogens ought to be documented, not just for the health of my fellow Minneapolitans, but for the health of burger eaters everywhere. And of course, thermometer use is recommended whenever preparing ground beef.
The Make Your Own Jucy Lucy video is included below http://heavytable.com/make-your-own-jucy-lucy/. Warning: Conventional safe cooking technique not displayed in video.
Evan Henke is a student at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health pursuing a Master’s degree in Environmental Health. An avid fan of foodborne disease epidemiology and food safety, he spends most of his free time angering his friends with his knowledge of the food chain and careful scrutiny of food safety practices.
1. Ahmed, Nahed M., Donald E. Conner, and Dale L. Huffman. "Heat-Resistance of Escherichia Coli O157:H7 in Meat and Poultry as Affected by Product Composition." Journal of Food Science 60.3 (1995): 606-10.
Simply Recipes explains how to use fingers to test if meat is cooked (total BS)
In the expanding category of really bad food safety advice is this entry from Simply Recipes:
There are two basic methods to test for how done your meat is while you are cooking it - use a meat thermometer, or press on the meat with your finger tips. The problem with the meat thermometer approach is that when you poke a hole into the meat with a thermometer, it can let juices escape, juices that you would rather have stay in the meat. For this reason, most experienced cooks rely on a "finger test" method, especially on steaks (whole roasts are better tested with a thermometer).
For example, the story explains that to test for raw: Open the palm of your hand. Relax the hand. Take the index finger of your other hand and push on the fleshy area between the thumb and the base of the palm. Make sure your hand is relaxed. This is what raw meat feels like.
There’s more. This is what Johnny Cash and I think (below). Stick it in. Use a thermometer.
Thanks to another barfblog.com reader for the tip.
Yahoo Food sucks at food safety advice
Among the six most common ways to ruin a burger, which Yahoo Food is promoting ahead of Labor Day, is this nose-stretcher:
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Overcooking: This should be a crime recognized by the federal government. For the popular medium-rare, grill the meat exactly three minutes on one side (keeping the grill lid closed) and two minutes on the other. If you're going to add cheese, let it melt on top for another minute (and keep that cover closed!). We like our burgers medium rare, so much we've even sent them back at restaurants when they go beyond medium.
Nonsense. Using time make no allowances for variation in grill temperature, thickness of the hamburger patty and composition of the hamburger. A tip-sensitive digital thermometer is the only way to get a burger to the correct temperature of 160F, without overcooking.
Thanks to the barfblog reader who sent along the tip.
Living for, and hopefully not dying from, barbecue in Maryland
Michelle Marcotte (bottom, exactly as shown), an ex-pat Canadian and regulatory affairs consultant based in Glenn Dale, Maryland, who has worked in 40 countries, eaten well, but carefully, and never been sick, writes:
My husband was born lacking the barbecue gene on his Y chromosome; so it is up to me to either cook or fetch barbecue. Here, in the steam bath that is Maryland in the summer, sensible people fetch barbecue from a roadside truck or trailer.
Barbecue is slow cooked pork ribs, chicken or brisket. It is cooked over a wood flame, on a grill. The grill is placed down the length of a converted home heating oil tank which has been turned on its side, cut open and hinged to form a lid. When the lid of the tank is down, the resulting oven is as hot as hell.
Since barbecue is a necessity of life, I watch for a smoking truck or van parked by the side of the road. A line of cars parked on the verge and the intoxicating smell of barbecue are evidence of other barbecue-addicted persons getting a hit.
So, this week, while waiting for my whole chicken to slowly cook, I thought to observe the food safety of these itinerant barbecue kings. It is a two-person operation: the cook and the boss. You give your order to the boss and he yells to the cook to start the selection process. You stand in line and wait, unable to speak because your mouth is watering.
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The cook uses a very long-handled fork to move the dripping raw, marinated meat from the cooler to the grill and then, using exceptional genius, moves the meat around the flame, placing it in various positions sufficient to result in slow-cooked deliciousness. The raw meat and chicken juice drips on the almost done and finished cooked meat on the grill. But, after each addition of raw meat, that lid comes down for a few minutes, the smoke comes up, the heat waves distort the air for 4-5 feet above the tank. I pray it is enough to kill the bacteria spread from the raw chicken over the cooked meat.
The boss takes his long handled fork and spears the meat that the cook has placed on the front of the grill. He whacks it down on the cutting board that has been in use from early morning. He puts disposable gloves on, and chops the chicken into quarters, the ribs into halves and the brisket into slices. He places it all in a foil-lined Styrofoam take-out box. He slathers it with barbecue and hot sauce. He then takes the gloves off, takes your money, puts new gloves on and starts over with the next customer.
In this scenario there was no handwashing, not even a pretense of handwashing. There was no tub of water on the trailer. The nearest meat thermometer is 10 miles away. And that’s how it is when you have a barbecue addiction. You take risks.
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You take the barbecue home and eat it promptly, praying to the foodsafety gods
Stick it in for safety
The first thing I bought when we arrived in Florida a couple of weeks ago was a meat thermometer: groceries, wine, toilet paper – and a digital, tip-sensitive meat thermometer.
Can’t cook burgers without them.
Yesterday I ventured from our Venice Beach hideaway to the University of Florida in Gainesville to hang out with my friend Michael Batz and deliver a seminar at the Emerging Pathogens Institute about food safety culture stuf.
Michael and I went to lunch at some Spanish/Cuban place that seemed quite friendly, so, being the nerd I am, I ordered a hamburger.
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The server asked me how I would like it, and I asked, what are my options?
She said however I wanted it (that’s really what she said).
I said, 160 F.
She said, we don’t do that.
I said, well-done.
Stick it in.
Is it a barbeque or grill?
I am from California. In California, it’s called a barbeque. I went to college in Alabama and graduate school in Kansas where both places call it a grill. The box labeled it a barbeque grill, so I guess .jpg)
everyone is right.
Regardless of the name, I purchased my very first barbeque this weekend. I put it together correctly and cooked chicken on it. I had never barbequed (or grilled) by myself, but I knew exactly when my chicken was done cooking: my tip sensitive, digital thermometer told me so. My chicken was cooked to a perfect 165°F.
And yes, I also thoroughly washed my hands before cooking and after touching any raw chicken.
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Teenagers can use thermometers for food safety
Food safety type and barfblog.com fan Valerie Hannig of Wilmington, Delaware, sent me a picture of hope this morning.
For all those government agencies who say people won’t use thermometers, so they have to be told to cook burgers until the juices run clear, or until the food is piping hot, or something equally useless, here is Valerie’s son, Alex, temping a chicken thingy (below).
Valerie says, “It makes me feel great that after all these years I have been in food safety, it is nice to see good habits passed down to the next generation of foodies.”
Stick it in.
Don't kill your neighbor with undercooked hamburger
It seems everyone in the media is bent on cross-contaminating and undercooking their food this summer. On Monday night’s “Great American Road Trip” (a poor replacement for the Amazing Race), the first challenge was for the men to cook hamburgers on a charcoal grill in 30 minutes for all the families to judge. The challenge took place in Sedan, Kansas at the Red Buffalo Ranch.
First, host Reno Collier made a cooking demonstration. No handwashing stations are present anywhere in sight (see right). 
After Collier explained how he likes to talk to his meat as he formed a raw patty, he threw it on the grill and wiped his hands on a towel. The condiment station was well stocked, but there were no meat thermometers and no safety instructions. The DiSalvatore dad said he’d never cooked anything in his life. Silvio quickly asked for tips from his wife Amy who said, “Just don’t overcook it.”
Silvio: “How do I know when it’s cooked?”
Amy: “A little bit of pink inside. Good luck.”
The father of the Rico family made the decision to cook his entire 5 lbs of meat and he commented, “I really misjudged how long it would take to cook those things.” Ricardo’s giant burgers were far from being done when it was time to serve. 
Host Collier yelled out, “Feel free to check these things out before you go sticking them in your mouth.” [Katie, that was for you.] One of the kids commented, “I was more nervous about barfing than about winning the challenge.”
It’s mindboggling how much cross-contamination took place in this highly edited clip (see approximately minutes 11 to 20). I think I threw up a little bit in my mouth while watching. In the end, the Ricos went home, but surprisingly they did not receive the lowest score for their burger.
Raw burger is not safe to eat. Hamburger is done when it reaches an internal temperature of 160F as measured by a tip sensitive meat thermometer. (See Doug’s videos on youtube.) Color is an unsafe indicator of doneness. Wash your hands after touching raw meat and before touching ready to eat products like buns. I personally find it challenging to grill and avoid cross-contamination … so why does everyone keep saying how simple it is to make a burger?
If you want to risk your own stomach or life, that’s your business; but please do not try to kill your neighbors or your children with undercooked meat or cross-contaminated condiments.
Powell to Times - stick it in
The following letter appeared in the Dining and Wine section of this morning’s N.Y. Times:
Re “The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts” July 1:
The only thin piece of metal that should be stuck into the side of a hamburger is a tip-sensitive digital thermometer. Chef Seamus Mullen’s recommendation to put any thin piece of metal into the side of a burger, and “If it’s barely warm to the lips, it’s rare. If it’s like bath water, it’s medium rare,” only demonstrates the divide between food safety and food pornography.
Color is a lousy indicator of burger safety, as is the taste of metal sticks. Rather than putting E. coli O157:H7 on precious testing lips, use a thermometer.
Dr. Douglas Powell
Manhattan, Kan.
The writer is an associate professor of food safety at Kansas State University.
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Andrew Stormer: stick it in for safety (a thermometer)
Andrew Stormer (right, exactly as shown), a Kansas State food science grad who used to work with me writes from Topeka:
Food is my career and a passion, so I often find myself in conversations with people regarding trendy food topics (organic, healthy, safe etc.). Today I found myself in the midst of a debate about the doneness of burgers with a plant employee.
The other dude was talking about the burgers he had grilled on July 4th. I asked him if he used a tip sensitive digital thermometer to determine if it had been cooked to 160°F, and the debate ensued. He proudly proclaimed that he could tell if they are cooked “just right” by looking at the color and pushing on them with his finger. I countered, stating that both of his methods were terrible indicators of doneness and that temperature is the only way to tell for sure. I mentioned premature browning and that 160°F was the necessary temperature to reach to ensure the death of the common patty-pathogen E. coli O157:H7.
He persisted, saying I was wrong, and that his method had always worked and he had never made anyone sick. How did he know that for sure, I wondered, explaining that the incubation period for E. coli was usually anywhere from about 18 to 72 hours, and that a person won’t exhibit symptoms of the infection until well after leaving the BBQ.
He didn’t have much of a response.
I then offered to find and show him studies, books, articles etc. that supported my claim. He wanted none of it, and wrapped up the debate nicely with, “I just know.” I was left frustrated and dismayed.
This is a dangerous and arrogant attitude to have towards food safety, but unfortunately I have come across countless others that share the same “I just know” train of thought. That said; his method is still a step above the “put-a-thin-piece-of-metal-in-the-burger-and-taste” method.
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BBQ safely with Douglas Powell
Look, I’m goofy. Probably the Brantford, Ontario, water, cause hometown pal Wayne Gretzky sure looked goofy on The Young and the Restless in 1981.
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I don’t want to be on video. But if that’s what it takes to get the message out about how to safely grill burgers this holiday weekend, then why not.
As I wrote the N.Y. Times today in response to their July 1, 2009 piece, The Perfect Burger and All Its Parts, Chef Seamus Mullen’s recommendation to use any thin piece of metal into the side of a burger, and “if it’s barely warm to the lips, it’s rare. If it’s like bath water, it’s medium rare” only demonstrates the divide between food safety and food pornography.
The only thin piece of metal that should be stuck into the side of a hamburger is a tip-sensitive digital thermometer.
Color is a lousy indicator of burger safety, as is the taste of metal sticks. Rather than putting E. coli O157:H7 on precious testing lips – stick a thermometer in.
Whole Foods porn
If you’re a retailer as big as Whole Foods, how hard is it to provide accurate information?
For their July 4 “perfect burgers” the food porn emporium says, “Grill meat to desired doneness; about 4 to 6 minutes per side over a medium hot fire. Be careful not to overcook, which will dry out the meat.”
This means nothing, but as a smart food science prof once told me, processing is all about adding air and water and charging more; Whole Foods adds swarmy words and charges more.
Color is a lousy indicator of safety. Use a tip-sensitive thermometer, and use food porn for titillation, not safety.
Watch where you're sticking it in
I've loved Chicken with Broccoli and Cheese (of various brands) since childhood. These prepared-
but-raw entrees mostly fell by the wayside when I started cooking like a grown-up. But just last week, the crunchy broccoli with melted cheese hidden inside tasty breaded chicken thingies called out to me and my inner child, and a box of them was soon in my home freezer.
A couple years ago (under the alias C. Wilkinson), I watched a bunch of people cooking products just like these in model kitchens. I was helping graduate researcher Sarah DeDonder, who was curious what could be contributing to the half-dozen Salmonella outbreaks associated with such products that occurred in the ten years before the study (and the two outbreaks after).
The raw, frozen chicken thingies I brought home last week were made by Antioch Farms (a Koch Foods brand). The box's front label proclaimed, in half-inch-high letters, that the products were indeed raw. The back label warned me not to cook them in the microwave. It also showed me how to stick a thermometer in to be sure each one reached a bacteria- and virus-killing 165 F.
I found each of these label features fairly helpful. However, when I baked them for dinner last night, I modified the depicted thermometer-sticking method a little to determine the internal temperature of the chicken, rather than the filling.
I'm happy to report that the chicken read 175 F before it reached the dinner table. And it was as delicious as I remembered.
PBS provides terrible advice for cooking hamburgers
This is why I don’t give money to PBS, or as Stephen Colbert refers to them, State-sponsored Jazz. Reminds me of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation: they’re morons.
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Maybe not about everything, but about stuff I know about, they’re morons.
PBS is broadcasting this video about how to cook moist, well-done hamburgers. The cross-contamination is awesome, way to go cooks. These people have no clue, even though they talk about bacteria, they still contaminate the rest of the kitchen with their bacterial-laden hands, and then go on to tell viewers that color is a good indicator for food safety.
Color is a lousy indicator for food safety. Use a tip-senstive thermometer.
You want a moist burger? Cook to about 150F, let sit for 5 minutes while the temperature rises to 160F
Final hockey game - Friday, 7 p.m., our place
Fortunately, Dale's in Germany so I don’t have to listen to how awesome Pittsburgh is and how he’s followed them since he was a kid.
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Me, I was crushed when Pittsburgh beat out Carolina in 4 straight games in the semis.
But I’ve gotten over it to host game 7 of the National Hockey League finals Friday night. Seriously, in Manhattan, KS, and with Dale in Germany, Amy and I are hockey central.
And Amy once again wants Detroit to win. Zetterberg is her hero.
Game starts at 7, we got the big screen, the HDTV, the food, the beer, and the hockey know-how – watch me explain again to Bob what offside is – and where would you rather be?
You’re all invited. Even you public health students I talked with this morning. I’ll show you how to properly cook a decent hamburger using a digital, tip-sensitive thermometer. Let’s see if you really read barfblog.com.
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Another 'Bamaburger, no thermometers in sight
U.S. President Obama went to another burger shop in Washington for lunch today, ordering up a cheeseburger with lettuce, tomato, jalapeno peppers, and mustard – not the fancy Dijon mustard.
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He also ordered a cheeseburger for Brian Williams, anchor for NBC. The network was filming a day-in-the-life program at the White House.
The media accounts and video do not indicate how the burger was ordered – I always order well-done. Hopefully someone is sticking in a tip-sensitive thermometer to ensure the burger is cooked to 160F.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says Americans should use a thermometer. Shouldn’t that apply to the President as well (photo below from AP)
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.
Obama at E. coli risk? What does a medium-well hamburger mean?
U.S. President Barack Obama and VP Joe Biden (right, photo from AP) ordered a couple of medium-well hamburgers for lunch today at Ray's Hell Burger in Virginia, and while media and blog reports were the usual gaga over, OMG, the President ate, no one asked, what does medium-well mean? Was the President at risk of contracting foodborne illness like the other 83 million American mortals each year?
Color is a lousy indicator. And who knows what medium-well means from one mom-and-pop shop to the next. One of the blogs is already having a heated discussion about what medium-well means and not one person has mentioned temperature.
Anyone out there want to do a graduate degree? Go to 100 burger joints, order burgers, and when they ask how would you like it cooked, ask the server, what does that mean. See if anyone mentions temperature. Write up the various responses in a methodologically sound way. You may save a President.
Stick a thermometer in cheap, stinky meat
The quest for discounted groceries has hit the news again with South Carolina news reporter Larry Collins asking,
“Stores slash prices about 50% - 60% on meat when it is nearing the date on the packaging. But, is that food safe to eat?”
According to registered dietitian Charlotte Caperton-Kilburn, such meat is typically safe to consume as long as you cook or freeze it as soon as you bring it home… and it smells okay.
“If the meat smells even remotely strange it should be returned to the store or thrown away,” Caperton-Kilburn told the news station.
In Ireland, Darina Allen wrote in an opinion piece for the Irish Examiner that, just the other night, she found a vac-packed duck in the back of her fridge that smelled “good and high.” Rather than throw it out, she “gave it a good wash inside and out and rubbed a bit of salt into the skin and roasted it.”
Her guests said it was delicious.
Allen reminisced about life before modern conveniences like electric refrigeration and explained, “We learned from our mothers how to judge with our senses whether food was safe.” She asserted that, “in just a few years, many people have lost the ability to judge for themselves when food is safe to eat.”
While most groceries sold in the US have a date consumers can read and use, the USDA only requires manufacturers of infant formula and baby food to determine and display a “Use by” date on their products—and this is mainly for the sake of ensuring nutrient quality. The others are voluntary and only describe when the food will probably taste best. Assessing safety is still up to the consumer.
Modern technologies like stamped dates and color-changing barcodes can help consumers with that assessment, as can the senses of sight and smell. The most reliable safeguard, though, is cooking to a temperature that studies have found will effectively kill pathogens. For poultry, this is 165F.
Chefs may tell you to use your senses to figure temperature, too, but only by using a tip-sensitive digital thermometer can you know for sure. It’s the consumer’s choice, as always, but I’d rather be sure than be positive for salmonella.
When broccoli doesn't make you barf
My husband just sent me a link with a recipe for some amazing broccoli – The Best Broccoli of Your Life, in fact.
It was a blog post by The Amateur Gourmet, lauding the cooking style of The Barefoot Contessa.
The Barefoot Contessa loves roasting. Specifically, she loves roasting vegetables at a high temperature until they caramelize.
As the recipe for roasted broccoli is relayed, The Amateur Gourmet reveals a secret that the Contessa doesn’t share:
[D]ry them THOROUGHLY. That is, if you wash them.
I saw an episode of Julia Child cooking with Jacques Pepin once when Pepin revealed he doesn't wash a chicken before putting it in a hot oven: "The heat kills all the germs," he said in his French accent. "If bacteria could survive that oven, it deserves to kill me."
By that logic, then, I didn't wash my broccoli; I wanted it to get crispy and brown. If you're nervous, though, just wash and dry it obsessively.
USDA agrees that, "It is not necessary to wash raw chicken. Any bacteria which might be present are destroyed by cooking." Though the temperature is measured in the food – not the oven.
You can be sure chicken is safe if a tip-sensitive digital thermometer reads 165 F in the thickest part of it.
Not much is said about temps for vegetables, though. I vaguely remember the test for ServSafe certification a few years ago suggesting they reach 135 F, but that’s not even out of the 40 F – 140 F “danger zone” and I have no science to back it.
I have seen the science on the internalization of pathogens in some produce and in such cases washing will not make vegetables any safer to eat.
So I might just cook it unwashed. Or I might be “obsessive.” Either way, I’ve got what I need to make an informed decision; it’ll be my choice and not my ignorance that leaves the possibility for pathogens in.
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