Dave the Cook

Funny you should ask. Just the other day, I roasted a chicken in a flowerpot. Seriously.

You're right about lawsuits, of course. Even a suit without merit is expensive, time-consuming and potentially damaging. Truth, as they say, is the first victim. I've never done chicken in a slow cooker, as I suspected that the outcome would match your description. But I'm tempted by Chef Fowke's preparation, and will try that soon.

For purposes of food safety, it doesn't matter how quickly it gets to temperature. The chicken will be at an elevated temperature for hours. That's where your margin of safety comes from. (You don't like the Formal Geese? )

I didn't mean to scare anyone off the idea of slow-roasted chicken. I think it's a good idea, as long as you're careful -- though you should always be careful, and especially with chicken and chicken products. Let me repeat the numbers: In case I haven't been clear, in my opinion, this is a perfectly safe way to cook a chicken. It is as valid (from a safety standpoint) as 40 minutes at 450, or 75 minutes at 350. Wolfert, as we used to say around here, if you are comfortable and have the time: how do you feel about depriving your fans of a safe, delectable method of preparing chicken because magazines don't trust their readers? Or have I got that wrong? I think it's sad.

According to Rival (manufacturers of the original Crock Pot): Their FAQ is here.

That's what Wolfert's method does, doesn't it?

From the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition: From elsewhere on the same site: In other words, by the time you get the living, breathing bird, there's a chance it's already infected. There's also a chance you, as the "processor" in your example, might just make it worse.

I'm not going to tell you to ignore the FDA. But I'll point out that the FDA has to deal with the lowest common denominator; it is their job to err on the side of caution. Look at how difficult it is to find the answer to a simple question like: at what temperature do salmonella bacteria die? The FDA would rather be damn sure you kill all the bugs, so they don't tell you. They only recommend overcooking. Thermometers lie, they're subject to misuse, people sometimes behave stupidly. The FDA has to account for this, and more, in their guidelines. That's OK with me; nuance is not their forte, nor is it their mission. But as a cook, nuance is a valuable tool, and with proper information, I can employ it to better effect. Three minutes at 140 F will kill salmonella. It is killed instantly at 160. Of course, the concern is that not all of the bird will get to 160, and you can't check every millimeter to be sure. But if you're roasting at 160, I'd say every bit of your chicken will spend a lot more than three minutes at 140 -- half an hour is more like it. I'd eat chicken cooked this way without trepidation (especially if you were doing the cooking, Paula). Now, tell me how to roast at 160. It's intriguing, because theoretically, you chicken would never be overdone; you could hold it there indefinitely while you made the gravy and mashed the potatoes. But my oven won't reliably go lower than 170 . . . (For the record, salmonella might be less of a concern than campylobacter, the the leading cause of bacterial diarrhea in the U.S. There are probably numbers of cases in excess of the estimated cases of salmonellosis . . .)

Other than for aesthetic reasons, if you're cooking your bird to 160 F (for example), why does it matter how it got there? Edit: fixed quote

Thanks for your report, SM. I'm glad the brining didn't go overboard. IMO, the most dramatic results come with turkey and chicken breast. Maybe they could be candidates for your next excursion. Check out the Best Chicken Ever thread for ideas. As for the Polder: yes, they really are great -- wait till you use one on a grill or in a smoker! If you've got a probe that works, protect it like the treasure it is. I don't know if there was a bad batch or what, but for a while it seemed like there were an awful lot of failures. (BTW, the probes are interchangeable among most of the major brands.)

This "article" is so riddled with errors as to be dangerous. A few: It's been an awfully long time since charcoal was made from anything but wood, especially activated charcoal. Brown sugar, sugar made from cane, and confectioner's sugar are most certainly "processed," in the sense that they are purified from raw cane or beets (without, as far as memory serves, the use of animal products). Of these, brown sugar is the most highly processed. Turbinado is not raw sugar. Despite the repetitive implication, keeping kosher has nothing to do with being vegetarian. If I were Jewish, I'd be amused. Or offended. Only vegetable waxes may be used on vegetables sold in the US, unless animal origin is clearly labeled on the wholesale container. Unless bees and lac beetles count. Most wax is carnauba.

Exactly. How can you lose?

In my opinion, yes, at five days you are on the verge of wet curing. But real curing is usually done at much higher concentrations, so invoking the word "cure" is descriptive, rather than technical. I'm not saying that this is bad, but for sure it's going to be hammy. Maybe that's what the recipe intends. Brining is pretty formulaic: it's less iffy, for instance, than a recipe that calls for "medium" heat (don't you always wonder how close your "medium" is to the author's?). In brining, this much of this kind of meat + this much salt = a repeatable result. Many recipes call for brining whole loins two to four days. If you want pork flavor to predominate, I think that's too long, but it's really a matter of taste. I would go two days maximum. After that, you're going to get something less like roasted pork and more like ham. And yes, there is a theoretical limit to brining: eventually all the liquids will come to equilibrium. But because you're mucking around with the physical structure of the meat proteins, and they're undergoing slow but fairly constant change, that's going to take a long time. You'll have gotten the maximum seasoning value from brining long before that stage is reached. On the other hand, I suspect that in the Chez Panisse recipe, those protein changes are part of the effect you're after. So my advice to you, SM, is to do the recipe as it's written. Otherwise, you'll never know what the author was trying to do. If it comes out too hammy, or to salty, you can change it next time. And please let us know what happens.

Shooting fish in a barrel seems ordinary, yes. But fish, in a barrel, with mucilage is not to be missed, I think.

My wife and daughter run from the room if they even hear me cutting through the ribs!

Chilling is not necessary. Back when McD was using fresh cut fries they never chilled them between fryings. It's the way I've been shown by a couple of people and the way I've always done it. Perhaps it has to do with the shock of chilled potato hitting the hot shortening. The counter to that is the chilled potatoes bring down the heat quicker, lengthening the shortening's recovery process. Next batch I will try without chilling the potatoes. I think it's all about browning: Chilling will dehydrate the surface of the potato. Less moisture means less steam, which means the surface can get hotter than 212 F more quickly. The cold fry dunked in the hot oil might (I'm not certain of this) evaporate any remaining surface moisture more quickly than if it was warm. Chilling converts some of the starch to sugar, though not a lot. The fries will brown a bit better if this step is included. How much conversion takes place will depend on how long you leave them in the fridge.

Thank you. The brine will work either way. For dishes where the shrimps will end up peeled anyway, I peel first because the brine is sticky, but that's just my preference. You might try broiling brined shrimps, shell-on for peel 'n' eat festvities. It's a nice, slightly smoky variation, and the combination of shell and brine gives the shrimps enough protection to withstand the high direct heat. By the way, I got that ham comment, too.

As I understand it, koshering is not brining. It's a three-step process: soak in cool water, remove and salt (as in: cover it completely), soak again. So it's not really the same situation. Does koshering or brining "draw out blood"? Not in the clinical sense. Organs aside, meat is muscle, and the muscle of a healthy animal does not harbor blood (the "helathy" part is handled in the inspection that follows butchering). The red stuff that is commonly thought to be blood in meat is myoglobin; actual blood is hemoglobin. No doubt some myoglobin is drawn off in both proceses. The evidence is the pink cast that characterizes a used brine. But not all of it -- diffusion makes that impossible. I don't want to make this a debate about kasruth, a discussion for which I am educationally and religiously almost completely unarmed. But it seems to me that Jewish dietary law has its roots in food safety. In particular, koshering meat seems to be about protecting the exposed surfaces of butchered meat, and about segregating potentially dangerous substances like blood from wholesome edibles. The idea that it is about surfaces is supported by the alternative treatment for some cuts: you can broil it. In fact, this is the only way that organ meats may be prepared; salting is considered inadequate. This is why steaks, for instance do not need the soak/salt/soak treatment -- because they are destined for the open flame. Perfectly kosher. Or kasher? As far as I can determine, salt the itself is irrelevant to dietary law, as a consumable. Remember that all the salt is to be washed off in the third step of koshering. It's named for its use, not its provenance. In any case, I think perhaps salt is by definition kosher? Every salt container I can find says it's kosher. Yes.

I won't dispute that a combination of acid and salt can have a significant effect on meat. But I think we should get things in perspective. Ceviche uses undiluted citrus (usually lime, or a mixture of lime and lemon) juice. The acid content of lemon juice varies; it is in the range of 3.7 to 8.4% citric acid. Let's take 5% as an average value. (I couldn't track down the acid content of limes, but they are weaker than lemons, and oranges, even sour oranges, are weaker still.) One half-cup of lemon juice (using the quantity fifi supplied, but substituting the known strength of lemon juice for the unknown but weaker strength of sour orange) in one gallon of water dilutes the citric acid concentration to 0.15%. It's certainly true that very small quantities of ingredients can make a huge difference in qualitative results (just add a teaspoon of dish detergent to your gallon of brine if your don't believe me), but 0.15% citric acid is 1/30th the strength of a ceviche recipe. The comparison to actual pickling stretches it more, since pickling solutions are usually about 5% acetic acid, which is much more powerful than citric acid, and uses a more concentrated brine to boot. Now, having said all that, I think the Colonel's idea for saucing is great. I'd bump the sour orange in your brine to 1 cup and do the sauce, too. I also think you should borrow that pH meter and let us know what the values pre- and post-OJ are. One last thing: I don't know a whole lot about organic chemistry, but I know that pH is not nearly the whole story on acid/base strength. We should be careful to draw too many conclusions without additional information.

Chicken powder

I wouldn't, I was just wondering. Besides now (after you get back to us with the results of course) we would know how much salt is required to float an egg FM You're right, it's important.

Aw, hell. I was afraid someone would bring up the egg. Now I'm going have to try it and see how much salt is required. I'll let you know. But I refer you to the third point in my list. Why would you want to float an egg when you can just measure and go?

That is one beautiful turkey, FoodMan.

Thank you. I think the potato thing is charming, and I think it would work, for the most part. But it's hardly the sort of thing you can expect a Smug Scientific Bastard (SSB) to approve: A lot would depend on the type of potato. Setting aside individual potato-to-potato (p2p) variation, there are big differences in moisture content between, say, a Russet and a Yukon Gold. This water content would be the prime determinant in the quantity of salt required to enable tuber buoyancy. You would have to contend with both original water content, and differing rates of absorption. It's hardly repeatable, due to p2p variation cited above. Repeatability is essential for SSB endorsement. SSBs don't believe in guesswork when a measuring device (especially if it's electronic) can obviate it. Weigh your salt, measure your water. Save the rustic notions for garnishing your perfectly seasoned protein.