From: njs@scifi.uucp (Nicholas J. Simicich)
Subject: Re: Recipes For The Cooking Inept??
Organization: Nick Simicich, Peekskill, NY
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 20:10:42 GMT

In article <73AIEL5@taronga.com> arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva) writes:
>In article <1992Aug12.185632.19731@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca>, marcy@sqwest.wimsey.bc.ca (Marcy Thompson) writes:
>> 
>> And if you have to work at a nine-to-five job, but still want to eat roast
>> chicken, use the Urban Peasant's method:
>> 
>> Turn the oven to 200F and stick the
>> pan in the cold oven. Go away for 6-10 hours (it doesn't matter much;
>> after 10 hours, the bird starts to fall apart). 
>
>Two things wrong here.  One is cooking the bird that slow.  I don't
>think that low of a temperature is sufficient to kill off all the
>bacteria that may be present.

Stephanie, the interior of a well done chicken is around 180F.  I
wouldn't advise cooking like this and not checking with a meat
thermometer, but if you've gotten *all parts* of the bird to 180, it
is done no matter how fast or slow you got it there.  In fact, cooking
like this is the *only safe way* to cook a stuffed fowl larger than a
'cornish game hen', IMHO.  If you do that, you need to check the
interior temperature of the stuffing as well, and the temperature of
the stuffing at the boundary between bird and stuffing.  It all has to
be up in the 'well done fowl' range.  If it is, then I believe that it
is safe.

Check the recipe for the TurDucken from the Paul Prudomme Family
Cookbook.  They cook a boned turkey stuffed with a boned duck, stuffed
wit a boned chicken (and three layers of different stuffing) for 12
hours ar 200F.  A meat thermometer stuck all the way into the middle
of the center bird registers done.  I made this for last Christmas
dinner. Yum.  I won't attempt to replay the recipe here:  It is really
long, and there are the three recipes for stuffing, and it also
includes the information on boning the whole fowl, which work very
well.  The book is worth it for this one recipe, but make it with less
salt than called for, for my taste.

Did anyone else see the news story about washing checkens with TSP,
commercially, to eliminate/reduce the salmonella?  There was a story
in TV like this the other night.

>Second is turning your oven on and leaving the house.  This is not
>a very wise move as instead of coming home to the aroma of roast
>chicken, you could very well come home to a burnt down house.
>I don't mean to preach but I just don't think it's good advice to
>give a novice cook.

I read through the thread before replying, and folks got into not
operating crock pots when not there and bread makers, and so forth.  I
began thinking.  I've been running a computer in my house for years,
and never think about turning it off when leaving the house.  My
office computer is only turned off during power failures or repair.
My fax machine is on all day and night, my modems are on all day and
night.  The refrigerator and water cooler runs all of the time.  I run
my crock pot and breadmaker when I'm gone (The breadmaker is on all of
the time anyway: It is my kitchen clock.)  The breakmaker even has a
'ready at time' function for mixing and baking the bread, and the
crock pot talked in the recipe book about the advantages of having
food ready when you got home from work.

As far as the big oven, I dunno.  It rarely catches on fire since it
is cleaned periodically. :-)  A self cleaning oven, especially, should
be well insulated.

>OTOH, I like to stuff my roast chicken with whole garlic cloves and
>orange wedges.  Rub the skin with olive oil and turns out being real
>crispy.  Tuck some fresh tarragon in there, too.  Yum.
>Roast in a hot oven for 1/2 hour and then turn down to a moderate
>oven and continue cooking until done.

By hot, you mean 400-450, to crisp the skin?  I'll have to try it.

-- 
Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - njs@watson.ibm.com
SSI #AOWI 3958, HSA 318, NAUI #14065
Join the movement ---  turn 'to bush' into a verb.