5 ms·
Generally speaking, if you are working on poultry, lower cooking temperatures work better. Why? Primary constraint: - Meat center at least safe-temperature.
by jamesaguilar 14y ago
Generally speaking, if you are working on poultry, lower cooking temperatures work better. Why?
Primary constraint:
- Meat center at least safe-temperature.
Secondary constraint:
- The meat should be at the lowest temperature possible.
Within these constraints, the hotter the environment is, the more the outside of the meat is going to exceed the safe temperature, and thus the tougher it is going to be.
- pekk 14y agoExcept undercooked meat (however safe) is often tough.
- jamesaguilar 14y agoI guess I just assumed that bringing the meat up to a safe temperature would cover that. I'm not talking about cold-roasting chicken.
- giardini 14y agoCouldn't you initially microwave the turkey to bring it's internal temperature up to oven temperature and only then put it into the regular oven?
- jamesaguilar 14y agoI'm not sure why, but my understanding is that microwaves are not good for flavor or texture.
- arh68 14y agoI don't think a microwave could effectively heat the center. The skin depth on a turkey is probably only a couple inches so a microwave could only heat the exterior.
- leoedin 14y agoMicrowave ovens don't heat from the outside in, like a conventional oven. Microwaves are passed through the food, and the changing magnetic field causes water and fat molecules to move through a process called dielectric heating. The rate that food heats up within a microwave is completely dependent on what it's made of, not where it is.
- arh68 14y agoYou are mostly correct, but I'd like to agree that the rate food heats up does depend where it is. I know this intuitively, when the middle of my burrito is cold when the rest is hot. Microwave ovens do not cook food evenly, and it's not just due to wave nodes. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating#Penetration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dielectric_heating#Penetration Part [0023] in particular: http://www.google.com/patents/EP1991813A2?cl=en http://www.google.com/patents/EP1991813A2?cl=en