The Perdue Chicken Cookbook | Page 8

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 it was kind of flat and tasteless. I remember wondering if this was what cotton tasted like - although to be fair, it wasn't really that bad. Why are bones sometimes dark? Darkened bones occur when the product has been frozen. Freezing causes the blood cells in the bone marrow to rupture and then when the chicken is thawed, these ruptured cells leak out and cause visible reddish splotches on the bones. When cooked, these discolorations will turn from red to almost black. Is it true that breast meat is the least fattening part of a chicken? Yes. Breast meat has about half the fat of thigh meat. If calories or cholesterol are important to you, choose the breast meat. Frank watches his cholesterol