How to Prepare and Cook the Perfect Chicken and Turkey - By: Kevin McCarthy

People want to eat healthy foods today, and a good way to accomplish that is through poultry. There are some chicken cooking tips that can help you in the kitchen and protect your family as well.

Here are a few of the best chicken cooking tips available.

• You must take care to always wash your hands, knife, and cutting board in hot soapy water after preparing raw poultry.

• You should never use the same utensils and cutting board for other ingredients without thoroughly washing them first and after use. This prevents cross contamination.

• You should always marinate poultry in the refrigerator. Never leave it out in the open.

• Do not use the poultry marinade for basting.

• If the marinade is to be used for the basis of a sauce, bring it to a boil and boil for 2 minutes.

• Never put cooked poultry on the same plate that was used to transport raw poultry. Again, this prevents cross contamination.

Here are some chicken cooking tips for storing your poultry:

• Fresh poultry is a very perishable food. You should not leave it out in the open air. Instead, wrap it in plastic as soon as you get it home from the store and always store it in the coldest part of your refrigerator. You should use it within two days; if this is not possible, place it in a freezer bag and freeze for up to three months. You should always freeze giblets and livers separately from the whole bird.

• Cooked poultry dishes can be frozen. However, you should not freeze poultry dishes that contain mayonnaise or hard-boiled eggs.

• Allow small poultry dishes to cool completely before wrapping and freezing them. Allow larger items to cool in the refrigerator and then wrap airtight and freeze.

• You should never freeze stuffed poultry.

Some of the most important chicken cooking tips involve proper thawing of the bird.

It is especially important that the poultry be properly thawed before cooking. Allow it to thaw in the refrigerator while it is in the original wrapper. You can place it on a tray to catch any drips that may fall as it thaws. When thawing in the refrigerator is not possible because there is not enough time, there are two other alternatives. For rapid thawing, you can put the bird in watertight wrapping and then submerge in cold water. You should change the water frequently as this will help quicken the process. Smaller birds require about one to two hours.

The other alternative is to leave the bird in its wrapper and put it into a heavy paper grocery bag. Close up the bag and put it into a cool room. You will need to check it frequently, and once the bird is thawed, you must cook it immediately.

Now for the Turkey!

Turkey is a long time favorite of many families and now there are some great cooking tips tricks that anyone can learn and use to better prepare these wonderful birds.

Selecting the proper size: You should plan on about 3/4 pound per person for generous servings. You should understand that this will not leave much in leftovers. If you like to have more leftovers, plan on 1 to 1 1/2 pounds per person.

Hens or Toms: It may surprise you but the only real difference between a hen and tom is the size. Hens are classified under 16 pounds and toms are over 16 lbs. A somewhat secret cooking tips tricks is that both will be a young turkey, just a few weeks old at the time of processing. They will be equally tender and moist.

Roasting your bird: Remove the neck and giblets from the neck and body cavities. Rinse the turkey inside and out with cold water. If you want to stuff the bird, you should loosely stuff the body and neck cavities and then fasten the leg clamp back onto the legs.

Cooking tips tricks: Place the turkey in a roasting pan with the plastic timer unobstructed. Cover with a lid, or fashion your own cover with a loose tent of foil. Remember to remove the cover for the last hour for browning.

Cooking tips tricks for Roasting Times: Roast in a preheated, 325 degree Fahrenheit oven. Roasting will take about 15 minutes per pound if the turkey is not stuffed. Stuffed turkeys require an additional 1/2 to 1 hour cooking time. However, it is always best to follow the instructions that come with the stuffing and the turkey. You oven temperature may vary as well which will require you to adjust your time, either upward or downward.

Cooking tips tricks for Basting: One of the most useful tools you can have is a suction basting tube. These inexpensive tools can make basting your turkey a snap and they can also help decrease the time that the oven door is open, which leads to losing oven heat. Baste your bird about every hour or so. This will help make it brown and tender.

About the Author

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