The Perdue Chicken Cookbook | Page 8

the shelf life and dries
out and toughens the meat. No white colored chickens get by the
inspectors. Sometimes when I open a package of chicken, there's a
pungent odor that doesn't smell spoiled, but it's definitely unpleasant.
Should I throw the chicken out? If the odor lasts only a matter of
seconds, your chicken is probably fine. Meat is chemically active, and
as it ages, it releases sulfur. When you open a bag that doesn't have air
holes, you may notice the accumulated sulfur, but it will quickly
disperse into the air. In fact, I've heard of cases where a wife will lean
over to her husband and say, "Smell this, I think it's gone bad." He'll
take a deep whiff and find nothing wrong with it. She'll take another
sniff and then wonder if it was her imagination. It wasn't. It's just that
once the package was opened, the sulfur smell faded into the air like
smoke rings. If the chicken still smells bad after a couple of minutes,
that's an entirely different story. The problem is bacterial spoilage or

rancidity or both. Return the chicken to the store where you bought it
and write to Frank. If a chicken's been around too long you can smell it,
and if you can't detect it at room temperature, you probably can as it
cooks, since rancidity is more obvious at higher temperatures.
Rancidity can occur without bacteria if the freezer where the meat was
stored wasn't cold enough or if the product was kept there for a very
long time, such as more than six months for uncooked chicken, or more
than three months for cooked chicken. (By the way, I don't like to focus
on this unpleasant stuff, but I do want you to get your money's worth
when you're buying chicken.) Are chickens given hormones? Never. I
remember when I lived on the West Coast, there was a small company
that advertised that its chickens were grown without hormones. I
thought this was unethical, because it implied that other chickens were
grown with hormones. The fact is none are. Can I cook frozen chicken,
or do I have to let it defrost first? In a pinch, go ahead, but allow extra
cooking time. For the best texture and tenderness, however, you're
better off starting from refrigerator temperatures; you can be more sure
of getting an evenly cooked product. How long can I keep chicken at
room temperature? From the point of view of food safety, you're taking
a risk if you leave it outside the refrigerator for more than two hours.
Unfortunately, bacteria grow and multiply at temperatures between 40
degrees and 140 degrees, and they flourish at room temperature. To
avoid food borne illness, all foods of animal origin should be kept
either hotter than 140 degrees or colder than 40 degrees. If you know
you won't be returning home directly after shopping, bring along an
insulated bag or box to keep cold foods cold until you can get them into
the refrigerator. Do I need to rinse chicken before cooking? Advice on
this has varied over the years, including the advice Frank gives. The
latest research shows that from a health point of view, washing is not
necessary. Any microbes that you'd wash off will be entirely destroyed
by heat when you cook the meat. It's actually far more important to
wash your hands, your cutting board, and your utensils since they won't
be sterilized by cooking. How do I get the best flavor? That depends on
whether you're after a mild and delicate flavor, or a strong and robust
flavor. The younger the bird, the milder the flavor. A game hen, which
is five weeks old, will have the mildest flavor of all. A broiler, at seven
weeks, will still have a quite mild and delicate flavor; a roaster, on the

other hand, is usually about five weeks older than a broiler and it will
have a much more pronounced "chickeny" flavor. (Frank and I enjoy
chicken at all ages, but if we had to choose on flavor alone, we'd most
often go for the roasters.) For a really strong, chickeny flavor, see if
you can find fowl or spent hens or stewing hens. These birds are around
18 months old, which means they're going to be quite tough, but if you
use them in soups or stews, they'll add an excellent flavor. I've had
chicken in the freezer for a year. Is it still edible? From a health point
of view it would be ok, but the flavor and texture will have deteriorated
and it just won't be particularly tasty. I stored chicken in the freezer for
a year once as an experiment, just to see what it would be like. It wasn't
awful, but