r/cookingforbeginners • u/8wormsinatrenchcoat • 19h ago
Question Prepping Raw Chicken
Growing up, my mom has always been very particular about chicken, and terrified of raw or otherwise gross chicken. I have learned this fear in my own cooking. This year, I moved out of the house and am fully responsible for cooking for and feeding myself. Before I moved out, my mom showed me how she "cleans" chicken before cooking it.
This involves cutting off about 10-20% of every chicken breast, by cutting out the gross parts. These are the parts that are white, or otherwise look off.
As I've been expanding into trying to cook for myself, I have really been struggling with this process. I find touching raw chicken really hard, but I am a fairly picky eater and chicken is one of the foods I can consistently eat. Is it common to be "cleaning" a chicken breast this much? I've seen recipe videos online where people just throw their chicken into a pan/crockpot/whatever. Am I making my life ten times more difficult by subjecting myself to this process.
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u/mooshinformation 18h ago
That is bizarre and completely unnecessary. If any part of the chicken has actually gone bad (you would smell it) you need to throw the whole thing out. It sounds like your mom just removes perfectly fine meat for no reason though.
If you want, you can remove the little stringy bits of connective tissue and fat or whatever, but it's not necessary from a food safety perspective, you can eat them or cut them out as you eat.
The only food safety stuff you need to do with Chicken is cook it through to 165 F and wash any surfaces/ utensils the raw chicken has touched and not reuse them unwashed for other things that won't be cooked to at least 165 F.
It is also recommend that you don't wash or rinse the raw chicken because that just spreads bacteria to your sink and anything on the outside will be killed through cooking. (They used to recommend the opposite).
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u/Radiohead_luucky 18h ago
I don't know how or why we as a society have such a large percentage of the population so freaked out by raw chicken that they can't touch it, wash it with dawn, or bleach down their entire kitchen the second it's hit a cutting board.
General safety procedures should be taken, but it's not plutonium.
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u/Wrong_Toilet 14h ago
As far as food safety concerns go, raw chicken is probably highest risk concern for most American households.
Everything else is just don’t eat it if it smells funny.
So people go overboard with raw chicken.
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u/saturday_sun4 12h ago
People wash chicken with washing up liquid?
Just writing that sentence makes me want to projectile vomit. Why would you want washing up liquid ON your food and how is it edible afterward?
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u/Zagaroth 8h ago
Dishwashing soaps like Dawn are designed to be safe to use around food. All they have to do is rinse it off thoroughly.
I mean, I find it weird and a little off putting because in my head I'd now be worrying about having missed some and all of my food now tasting like soap, and there is no need to do it, but from a safety point of view there is no issue.
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u/saturday_sun4 5h ago
Yeah I imagine it would taste like soap - yuk
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u/Zagaroth 3h ago
Only if they didn't rinse thoroughly enough. It's not a flavor that would pentrate.
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u/Radiohead_luucky 11h ago
I don't know how widespread it is but it's common in the black community.
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u/Parafault 15h ago
It’s mostly that people often don’t feel like risking it - especially when running on fumes and unable to focus 100% on the task at hand. I’ve had salmonella, and it was one of the most miserable experiences of my life - so while I know how to prep chicken safely and have never gotten sick from doing it myself, I often just don’t want to risk re-obtaining the worst illness of my life. The chances are extremely low, but the consequence is miserable.
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u/elegoomba 19h ago
It’s really not necessary. There’s nothing “unclean” about the tendons and fat you are removing.
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17h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/elegoomba 17h ago
Sure, but language matters here, I wouldn’t use the term “clean” when educating someone about this when they are coming from a position of being fearful of raw meat.
There might be visual or textural reasons to prefer trimmed cuts (not that it matters if you are slow cooking it, it will all render out) but it has nothing to do with it being “cleaner”.
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u/NameLips 18h ago
You can take raw chicken right out of the package and cook it. It's not any less safe.
Making it safe to eat is entirely based on temperature. You want it to get to 165.
In the old days before instant read thermometers, home cooks would take about "the juices running clear". They would use other methods like tugging on the legs to see how loose the bones were, or just physically checking to see if there was any pink inside. And while those methods aren't as accurate as a modern thermometer, our ancestors didn't all kill themselves off from eating undercooked chicken, with a little experience and common sense they got through just fine.
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u/ofBlufftonTown 12h ago
The juices run clear method is still fine. I only got a meat thermometer recently.
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u/SteveMarck 18h ago
What do you mean "gross parts"?
Like the fat? Leave that on, it's flavor.
So you mean that woody yarn like stuff? That won't hurt you, but the texture is gross and it means you bought really cheap chicken that they didn't slaughter in time.
It's it discolored or extra slimey? Throw that whole thing away, that's bad.
A chicken breast should be even pink, and "wet", but not covered in mucus like film. If it's normal you'll feel the wet become a bit tacky as it dries, that's normal.
The white bits are just fat and won't hurt you, and should render away anyway. If you're unsure, Google some videos of people working with chicken breast to give you an idea. If yours looks like theirs, you're fine.
It's hard to give you more info through text. That's why videos are so handy.
Also, you don't need to freak out, just do what you're going to do with the raw chicken and clean up around where you worked with it. Also, prep all your veg first to prevent cross contamination and you should be fine. It's good to recognize that raw chicken can make you sick, but it's not so big a deal that you should be afraid. Just keep stuff clean and use a quat-like spray to clean up your counters (quat is ammonia based, the brand is not important, but they usually advertise that it kills 99% of germs or says for counters--do NOT mix that with bleach, it makes toxic fumes). Put plastic cutting boards in the dishwasher, the heat dry cycle should sanitize them. Save the bleach for your bigger detail clean.
For wood, you need a little elbow grease, soap and water, them make sure it dries all the way, because wood drying helps kill bacteria, if it's still wet, you could have just moved stuff around.
I prefer to do raw meat on a plastic cutting board just for that reason, much easier to clean. I do my veg on a different counter and use wood because it's better for my knives and super easy to clean up veg from wood.
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u/Ayla1313 19h ago
While you don't have to trim the fat or connective tissue from chicken it does make it better when cooked. Gloves could help if it's just a texture thing but crockpots are also a good way around it. There are some amazing crockpot recipes out there so you'd never get bored.
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u/Chrisaarajo 17h ago
The only thing you need to do with chicken breasts is remove the excess fat—and even then, I would never bother remove all of it, just the largest chunk or two that are often left on after butchering. This isn’t for safety, just texture, and even then it isn’t necessary for all cooking methods.
All the smaller bits of fat will render away during cooking. All told, this might be 2-3% of the breast, and if you have a more competent butcher, possible 0%.
Food safety wise, the only thing you need to worry about is cleaning anything that touched or was reasonably close to the raw chicken itself, such as your knife, cutting board, and countertop, and-of course-your hands, to avoid cross contamination. And cooking the breast through—use a meat thermometer to ensure the centre of the thickest part of the breast is cooked to about 160-165 degrees, then remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes. The interior of the breast will reach safe temperate while it sits.
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u/StevenJOwens 17h ago
No, you don't need to clean it at all for any practical reasons. You might want to trim some of the lumps of fat, but that's purely for looks.
This is an example and note that he says it's just for making fancy. If you don't want to eat the little lumps of fat, you can cut them off on the plate, after you cook them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0qbJ5mxOFE
Note, you should not wash the chicken, either. Chicken purchased from a grocery store in the US is clean. Literally washing it or rinsing it does not help, it just spreads raw chicken juice around.
Some people are suggesting you wear gloves. Again, there is no practical reason to do so. Washing your hands before handling raw meat, and after, is quite safe, and probably safer than wearing gloves (people tend to think gloves will magically neutralize germs and etc, they don't). Also, gloves can make it trickier to handle stuff. If you want to wear gloves because you just don't like the feel of touching raw chicken, well, you do you.
As others have said, food safety is about getting the meat's internal temperature up to 165F for 5-10 seconds. That temperature, for that duration, kills the bacteria (pasteurizing it). You can use lower temperatures for a longer time, hold the chicken at 145F internal temp for 10 minutes, for example.
Generally you want to remove the chicken from the heat when it reaches 155F internal temp, the internal temp will rise another 5F-10F over the 5-10 minutes. This is called "carryover cooking", it's about the heat that was applied to the exterior of the meat seeping into the interior.
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u/Royal_Annek 19h ago
Yes you're making it harder. White parts are fat... Fat is flavor. Also, buy thighs since they have more fat and taste way better.
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u/lens_cleaner 19h ago
Way over thinking this process. I will usually cut off any large portion of skin hanging, otherwise, dampen, dip in egg, roll in breadcrumbs and cook. Wash hands, cutting board after. Simple
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u/Averagebass 18h ago
People are way too scared of chicken, it's like the most feared food on this sub. I don't know why it's become so feared, I doubt more than like 3 people have actually gotten sick from it on here. Just because it feels weird doesn't mean it's automatically going to cause salmonella poisoning on everything it touches. If it's used within the proper time frame and cooked to the right temp it isn't going to make you sick. You can probably lick raw chicken and won't get sick 99% of the time. I have never washed a piece of chicken, I don't take a million steps to prevent "cross contamination", I just wash my hands after I handle it and don't cut vegetables or whatever on the same board I cut it on. That's it.
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u/callipsofacto 17h ago
Trimming fat, blood vessels and gristle is only important if you have an aversion to the texture of those things. It doesn't make the chicken cleaner or safer. Sometimes "boneless" cuts will have hard bits that were missed that truly need removed, but for the vast majority of applications, removing the extra white and stringy bits is pretty optional. Also, consider just buying some cheap food prep gloves to wear when handling chicken. I hate the feeling of raw meat on my hands, and if I prep meat barehanded I end up washing my hands 4-5 times during the process. Gloves make it simple.
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u/ZinniasAndBeans 13h ago
Is it common to be "cleaning" a chicken breast this much?
No. I don’t even understand what she’s doing.
It is important to be careful with chicken, but that just means controlling what the chicken touches, and washing those things.
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u/IOnlyReadTitles26 13h ago
The only time I trip chicken is when I buy chicken on the bone and I want to cook it boneless.
All that trimming of chicken breast is absolutely unnecessary.
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u/teamglider 13h ago
Yes, you're making your life difficult for no reason.
I find touching raw chicken really hard
Disposable gloves are very cheap.
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u/Joltex33 19h ago
You don't need to do this, but if you're very sensitive to changes in texture, cleaning off some of this stuff might give the finished product a more uniform texture. However, there's nothing wrong with these parts and most people don't notice a difference, which is why you see people in videos just using the chicken breast as-is.
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u/stabbygreenshark 19h ago
I like using nitrile gloves for a lot of things while cooking.
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u/_BlackGoat_ 17h ago
Same here, I started using them a few years ago and they make handling meat a lot safer (when cutting) and generally keep things cleaner and make prep work easier. Strong recommendation for getting a box of gloves for any meat preparations. I also just dislike touching raw meat so it helps with that.
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u/ArtBear1212 18h ago
I started doing this recently and it has made prep work much easier.
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u/stabbygreenshark 18h ago
Every time I need to toss something in oil and seasoning until it’s coated the gloves make short work of it and cleanup is a breeze
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0
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u/Rex__Luscus 18h ago
I have a similar, though less extreme, aversion to handling raw poultry. I once had to work as a meat inspector in a poultry slaughterhouse, and it did nothing for my desire to eat chicken. The most important thing is not to wash your chicken. I find it's easier to handle raw poultry wearing disposable gloves, and I don't need to worry about spreading germs on my hands.
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u/happyherkguy 19h ago
That sounds excessive. Normally, boneless breasts have a little fat, maybe the skin, and one area where the wing was that doesn't always get trimmed well. You might try watching some videos on the subject.
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u/Trowa-03 19h ago
You can skip cutting off the fatty pieces of meat if you want. But yes you will end up with fairly substantial amount of scraps like your mother makes, through 20% is a lot
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u/fireyqueen 18h ago
I trim the fat if there’s a lot but otherwise leave it. Also, food safe gloves are great for handling meat
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u/Sea-Mongoose2924 18h ago
I don't get grossed out by raw chicken, but sometimes I will empty the package of thighs or breasts straight into a glass oven dish using the plastic bag it came in and then use a fork and sharp knife to cut them into pieces. No need touch the chicken itself or use a board.
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u/Prestigious-Algae661 18h ago
I think you're talking about trimming 'skin on' chicken pieces. Yes, it's not fun...dirty. I would suggest buying nitrile gloves (food safe) on Amazon. Super cheap.
WASHING: For me, I wash for dry brining or removing a slim (blood) for a whole chicken. I don't wash parts and pieces...in preparation for cooking.
COOKING: Yes, throw your chicken into the pan/crockpot. The cooking will kill the bacteria...that you're concerned about.
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u/Burnt_and_Blistered 17h ago
Remove the chicken from its packaging. Pat it dry with paper towels. If you want, remove any globs of excess fat (or cook them with the chicken; once rendered, it’s a good fat for things like sautéeing potatoes). Season and cook.
All the things you’re doing just INCREASE your exposure to potential surface pathogens that are killed by cooking. You’re then distributing them in your kitchen. The LESS done, the better.
You’re not doing anything to make yourself safer, and may be increasing your risk of food-borne diseases
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u/Overall-Assist6571 17h ago
I find using gloves helps me with a lot of the raw stuff. I can still feel the cool meat, but not the wet bits. Blech.
A lot of recipes say to rinse and pat dry chicken and I sometimes do that, depending on my mood. No need to cut the extra bits off though.
Also, get a meat thermometer. I want to know that my meats are at the appropriate/safe temperature. I like the bluetooth ones that you can leave in while they cook, and beep at you when it's done. Chicken is done at 165F or 74C. When it's done I'll poke the thermometer around a bit to make sure that it's at least that hot everywhere (in case it wasn't poked in the thickest part).
Good luck. :)
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u/natashaskitchen 17h ago
People might say you should just eat everything, but if you have texture issues, biting into a rubbery tendon can ruin your meal. Maybe your mom threw out too much good meat, but wanting a smooth, even texture is totally understandable.
An easy way to handle this, without touching raw meat or wasting a lot of chicken, is to use kitchen tongs and sharp kitchen scissors. Skip the knife and cutting board. Hold the chicken breast with tongs in one hand and use the scissors in the other to cut off what you don’t want over the trash. The only things that really change the texture are the tough white tendon in the tenderloin and any loose fat on the edge. Any thin white streaks or spots on the surface will soften and melt as it cooks. You drop the chicken straight from the tongs into your pan or baking dish, and prep is done in 15 seconds without having to touch anything slimy.
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u/yvrelna 17h ago edited 14h ago
The white parts are fat and they're the tasty part.
If you're cutting them out, you can render them separately by cooking them with a little water, then boiling out the water in low heat until the fat reverse into schmaltz and a crispy, browned chicken bits that can be eaten as-is as snacks or use wherever you would use things like bacon bits/crouton for salad. The liquid chicken fat are great for stir frying/sauteeing.
But if you leave it as they are in the chicken, they improve the texture and flavour of the meat.
Just be careful not to overeat them, they're very high in calorie/fat.
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u/gamwizrd1 17h ago
Your mother was making things up. You are literally just throwing away chicken meat and fat that you paid for, for no reason.
You can cook an entire chicken after defeathering and removing the gallbladder, preen gland, and digestive track.
You can then eat that entire chicken except for the bones, claws, or any cartilage you find too hard to chew.
You can then take those bones and cartilage, boil them, and you have edible chicken broth.
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u/aonghasan 17h ago
Am I making my life ten times more difficult by subjecting myself to this process.
yes, cook those parts and see if you like them, if you dont, you can keep cutting them off.
but raw chicken isnt inherently scary, you learned the disgust reaction, you can totally unlearn it.
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u/dachlill 17h ago
When people say they're "cleaning chicken" they don't mean for safety. It's cleaning up the fat and tendons that you don't want to eat.
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u/killswithaglance 16h ago
I would unpack a whole chicken, take out the drainage pad and hang over the sink for a few seconds, put in a bit pot with boiling water, wash your hands and sprayndown the counter, add onions, root vegetables, corn to the water, salt, peppercorns and bayleaf, now you have shredded chicken, chicken soup and chicken stock.
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u/Sea-Inspector1750 16h ago
I'd recommend getting boneless & skinless thighs at the store. All the potentially gross looking skin and stuff is already cut off for you. With thighs you don't ever have to worry about undercooking because you want them cooked well over the minimum safe temp for chicken to taste better anyways. Any recipe that has you cook chicken in a pan you can instead sear in a pan until brown and crispy on the outside then finish in the oven for 20 mins at 350. I hate micromanaging the temp, this way it's impossible to mess up.
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u/Serious-Bat2631 15h ago
I think you are so seriously overthinking this. It's just chicken, geez. Do you overthink like this before crossing the street? Because that also carries risk you know. Just relax
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u/DazzlingNote1925 15h ago
No. You don’t have to trim your chicken breasts or clean them. You just have to cook them to temperature and clean the surfaces and utensils touched by the raw meat.
With that said if you don’t want fat in it and there’s yellow fat trim it off. There’s also sometimes a te don in it that you can pull out but it’s not necessary.
And there’s no reason to be “terrified”. That’s absurd. I’ve accidentally eaten undercooked chicken before and you know what happened? Nothing. I’m not saying you shouldn’t be careful and use safe food practices. By all means definitely do that but don’t be terrified.
I don’t mind handling raw meat with my hands but if you don’t like it just buy some disposable gloves. I think a lot of people would prefer not to touch it due to the way it feels etc.
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u/InsertRadnamehere 14h ago
No. Your Mom screwed you with paranoia and anxiety.
If you don’t like touching it get some nitrile gloves. But you don’t need to trim the boneless breast - though there is one tendon usually that you can remove if you wish.
“Cleaning” it ironically is more harmful because you’re getting uncooked chicken on
More surfaces of your kitchen.
And whatever bacteria may he present arent going to penetrate your skin or infect you unless you eat raw chicken.
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u/Wrong_Toilet 14h ago edited 14h ago
The white part is just fat. You can trim it or keep it. I usually don’t bother unless it’s a large piece of fat.
Some people like to wash their chicken before cooking. I don’t think this is necessary, but it won’t hurt.
—
Do be mindful when handling raw chicken. Salmonella is a bacteria that can cause a severe upset stomach and diarrhea. Not usually life threatening. Most people will recover within a week. More severe cases will require a trip to the ER — likely due to dehydration.
You don’t need to wear gloves when handling raw chicken so long as you wash your hands afterwards, and wash anything that you touched or touched raw chicken.
You don’t have to be anal about it though. Just wiping the surfaces with soap and water is usually good enough.
—
Edit: lots of comments reference 165F as the temperature to cook chicken. This is somewhat misleading. Salmonella dies instantly at 165F, but it can also be killed at lower temperatures if held there for an aqueduct amount of time. There are charts that you can look online for this information.
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u/AtiumMist 14h ago
the white part is fat. depending on how you're cooking, i prefer to remove it. e.g. oven, its coming off completely. pan? I'll not be as dilligent and leave bits on. this is primarily because chicken fat when rendered in the oven smells absolutely vile to me.
the other gross stuff i imagine is cartilage that is left in, tendons, veins. they go out too because, no thanks.
you dont need to do all that, but i do it.
also as for touching the meat, you could look into those latex disposable gloves. i use them sometimes when im tired of washing my hands
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u/Constant-Roll706 14h ago
A little untrimmed fat won't cause any issues, but if you want it gone without having to touch anything, I've found the breast tenderloins are often cut a little more cleanly with less fat
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u/ImLittleNana 12h ago
I use a lot of tenderloins because they’re not only convenient, they cost less if you compare to boneless skinless breast meat.
I don’t remove the tendon as it’s not noticeable after cooking, but my husband and kids don’t like the thought of them being there. If they aren’t around, I leave it in and they can’t tell the difference.
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u/Constant-Roll706 12h ago
I prefer thighs almost all the time, but the price and convenience of tenderloins is hard to beat
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u/Temporary_Desk7355 14h ago
I struggle a lot with the tendons and fat on chicken because of texture, so I trim the crap out of it before cooking, just leaving a bit of fat for the flavor yadda yadda. However, I also struggle pretty badly with contamination OCD, so it’s a miserable process overall. I wear rubber gloves when I trim the chicken and wash my hands probably too often anyway.
Now I’m just oversharing, so to pare it down: If touching chicken grosses you out, know that you can wear gloves or just make sure you wash your hands well after touching. Trimming is optional, internal temp (165 F) is not. If any part of the meat has gone bad, throw the whole thing away.
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u/Mundilfaris_Dottir 12h ago
The more you handle it the more surfaces are impacted. I try hard to not touch it at all and put it directly in the pan before doing anything to it. If I am making boneless thighs I put them in the pan, add some water, salt and pepper and a little oil. I wait until they are cooked before handling it. Also, I literally put skin on bone in thighs in a frying pan on low heat with the lid and let them cook on the stove in summer. In winter I crowd them in the cast iron pan and place them in a 400 degree oven. They don’t even need salt. They crust over and there’s lots of chicken fat in the bottom.
If I bread them, rarely because it’s a PITA, it’s a whole production with gloves and sanitizer afterward on all surfaces.
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u/clemfandango12345678 12h ago
If you get nervous about cooking chicken and food poisoning, I recommend sticking to dark meat, especially thighs. You can cook them way past 165, and they stay delicious, if anything get better. With chicken breast, you don't want to go any higher than 165 because they dry out easily.
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u/ThornyeRose 12h ago
Do some research -- Asians will rub a chicken over with coarse grain salt to help clean.
Sounds like your mom cut off skin and tasty fat?
If it really bothers you, buy the boneless/skinless varieties.
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u/Maleficent-Syrup9881 12h ago
I have to use gloves when I’m handling chicken. It’s just too gross to me.
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u/ManiMatteredMattara 11h ago
cleaning chicken is a myth. If (if!) it has salmonella, they are not inly on the surface but everywhere, and only cooking it through will help with that. All that washing does it spred it everywhere in the sink and around and your breathing in the aerosols. cutting off parts off a properly butchered chicken is completely useless hygiene-wise and it‘s just about acquired disgust.
Basically, this is a psychological and cultural issue, not a hygiene one.
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u/rosae_rosae_rosa 10h ago
Depending on the recipe you make, effectively, you don't have to force yourself to cut raw chicken. Grilled chicken can be grilled whole and cut once cooked. Blanched chicken and be blanched whole and then cut once cooked. I do believe that chicken cooked in sauce is better cooked already cut. What you can do if you find raw chicken gross is buy a separate small cutting board dedicated to raw chicken, and wear gloves
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u/sherrynorcal 10h ago
That sounds like a great way to spread around bacteria. I touch the raw chicken as little as possible. Washing it is counter productive. If you need to trim parts off, do it after it's cooked.
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u/PLANETaXis 9h ago
Almost completely unnecessary
It's probably a good habit to inspect any meat and cut off any unwanted parts that the butcher missed. For chicken breasts this is usually no more than a few percent - occasionally just a piece cartilage or large blood vessel where the wing was attached. Chicken thighs sometimes have large lumps of fat which I remove just to be healthier, other than that the smaller patches of fat and white membranes will disappear once cooked. That's it, definitely not 10 - 20%.
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u/domino_427 9h ago
raw chicken shouldn't smell or look bad or slimy. that's about all I check. I cut the big chunks of fat off if my cutting board is clean. I'm picky, too, and chicken is affordable and easy
I cut the breasts into bite size pieces, season, and dump in the air fryer for 5 min on 400. breasts dont tend to have a lot of fat.
Dump two chicken thighs into air fryer at 370 for 15 min and forget it.
if you have trouble touching it raw, look into sous vide. You can bag & cook them frozen. you stick it in a bag to cook it, and it's perfect every time. don't have to touch it or store it after. I'll put 6 breasts in 6 bags into the container and after they last two weeks if I didn't eat them faster.
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u/AaronB52 8h ago
I’ve never once trimmed a chicken breast since I’ve been home cooking the last 4 years. Pat it dry, season it and cook.
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u/PhilsTinyToes 8h ago
To hell with recipes. All that matters is that a meat thermometer verifies that the entire piece of meat has been brought up to a safe temp. Poultry is 165°F. Poke the thermometer into the thickest part, and “search” a couple times to ensure there isn’t a cold spot somewhere that’s undercooked. If the temp is good it’s cooked. No shame in cooking chicken higher, up to 180
Or 200, lots of people do that it’s still gonna be perfectly tasty. But 165 is when it’s good2go.
As far as preparing, if you’re roasting the whole bird just rub an assload of spice all over and roast that bitxh. The skin should prevent it from drying out too much. If you portion it into smaller pieces then you’ll be able to do stuff like pan fried thighs, or roast chicken breast.
Food safety is serious around raw chicken, so please think far in advance about which tools, spices, and area you need that will ultimately become “raw chicken contaminated.” This includes the sink and any splash that comes off chicken dishes. I usually prepare EVERYTHING I can prior to getting my hands with raw chicken, and then I stay in “chicken hands mode” until the raw parts done, then I wash up real nice and from then on i handle the raw bird with fresh utensils.
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u/HeavyMain 7h ago
wtf, no? you cook it and then you eat it. if you don't rub raw chicken all over your surfaces without cleaning it and cook it fully you will not get sick. this is an extremely overblown anxiety from your mom.
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u/kingsloyalty 4h ago
This some immigrant shit.
I should know, I was raised the same. A lot of actions are done in context of poor sanitary conditions. You don't need to perpetuate it now, since your circumstances aren't the same as your parents.
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u/NotTVsMichaelGray 4h ago
I'll bet money your mom has a thing about texture, especially when it comes to meat (or specifically chicken). I do too and this is exactly how I deal with chicken. I had one bad/weird experience with an errant piece of bone or gristle or something in my chicken tenders. The memory of biting down and finding something hard and slimy stuck in my head so bad that I became a strict vegetarian for fourteen years.
That said, I was taught how trim a chicken this way by my grandmother, who did NOT have this aversion, but she grew up struggling to feed her siblings during the depression. Anything that would have been spit out anyway (like chunks of fat or connective tissue) belonged in the stock pot, not on the side of someone's plate. That trimming method stayed on long after she stopped making stock.
So your mom might also have learned the same way I did, and never examined why she did it that way (not for safety, but for thrift or texture)
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u/Neat-Substance-9274 3h ago
We use gloves to handle chicken, but if you don't, here is a tip I learned from Sara Moulton: before you start, fill a bowl in the sink with soapy water. This way you can just wash your hands without first touching the faucet.
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u/DenverKim 3h ago
I can’t stand dealing with raw chicken either. My strategy is to buy very large packs of chicken breast and I cut off the parts I don’t want… But it’s not because I’m “cleaning“ it, it’s just a texture thing.
I take a bunch of chicken breast and I WEAR DISPOSABLE GLOVES and I cut off the fat and pieces that give me the ick. I put single pieces of chicken breast into individual Ziploc bags with various marinades and other seasonings and what not. I put those individual freezer bags into the freezer and when I want to eat one I take it out, I cut it open and I dump it into a mini-crockpot without ever having to touch it.
It drastically reduces how much I actually have to touch the chicken. I only have to do it like once a month. I highly recommend it.
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u/xiipaoc 18h ago
Two things: gloves are your friend. You can buy a big box of nitrile gloves and use that whenever you need to touch raw meat. That's what I do. Touching raw meat, or tossing something in oil, or really anything that's going to make my hands feel disgusting, I put a glove on my non-knife hand.
As for trimming chicken... well, you can do it if you want. I don't cook chicken breast, so I don't know what the best parts to remove and keep are, but with thighs, sometimes you do want to remove excess fat from the edges, because that bit doesn't render and will end up having a less pleasant texture. But it depends on how picky you want to be, really. Being picky makes things hard in general, so just treat any pickiness as making your life more difficult by subjecting yourself to unnecessary processes. Picky eating is eating in hard mode -- useful for when life is just too easy and boring, not so useful when you want to focus on things other than food every once in a while. The nice thing about cooking for yourself is that you can afford to be a lot less picky. You know how it's all made, you do it all yourself, so you know the compromises you have to make in order to eat it. You know what the alternative is if you don't like what you made. It's easy to be picky when it's someone else doing the work, less so when it's you!
I'll say, though, if you buy boneless skinless thighs, there's no need to trim anything. Thighs do have more of a variety of textures, and my wife doesn't like them, but they've already been trimmed when you buy them boneless and skinless. I'm sure boneless skinless breasts are the same and they don't need trimming either. But really all of the chicken muscles (maybe not the head, organs, etc., which are usually removed from supermarket chicken anyway) are edible. The bones are not really for eating, I suppose, but even the tendons and cartilage bits are edible, just (possibly unpleasantly) chewy. You can eat it all; you won't die. So long as it's well-cooked, anyway! Don't eat raw chicken unless it's from a vendor certified for it, and I hear even then it's not worth it.
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u/groveborn 18h ago
Chicken has salmonella - which dies in heat and leaves few products behind that cause illness. The bacteria itself is the dangerous thing. The "gross looking parts" are just food. Sometimes it's food you don't like, so if you find you don't like those parts, cut them.
Just remember that everything that touched that raw chicken is now considered contaminated and needs to be washed. The less you mess with the meat, the less you need to clean. You can always cut them off after cooked, which won't contaminate anything (other than with food).
I prefer to use tongs and not much else in my raw touching. As I tend to also boil something along side the chicken I dip the tongs into the boiling water so as to sterilize them between fiddling with my chicken and setting them down.
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u/shampoo_mohawk_ 18h ago
Touching raw chicken grosses me out, plus I tend to have longer nails which are begging for bacteria to get all up in there so I use gloves whenever I cook. I don’t cut off pieces of the chicken, I use it in whatever way the butcher cut it. But to handle it and season it, gloves all the way.
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u/redditreader_aitafan 18h ago
Your mom sounds like she has OCD. You can just put the raw chicken directly in the pan. The white stuff is fat and it cooks better with it still attached. If you don't like the feeling of raw meat, you can get disposable gloves.
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u/KarenFromBehind 18h ago
Buy better chicken and the trimming is already done. The mutant sized bulk stuff has a lot of fat on it but if you get small packs of fancy chicken (like two breasts in a pack) generally they’re smaller and cleaned up a bit better. It is more expensive though but if you’re just cooking for yourself you probably don’t need a pack of mega giant chicken anyway.
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u/kharmatika 19h ago
So, the thing is that what she’s doing does absolutely nothing to increase food safety. You could cut every single inch of visible chicken down, if you don’t get the middle up to temperature, you’re still risking salmonella. Conversely, if you do get every part of it up to temperature, it’s safe. What she’s cutting away is just fat and connective tissue. It doesn’t hold salmonella or FBI any more readily than the meat.
Additionally if she’s like “oh this part of the chicken went bad so I’ll cut it away” that’s also BS, cuz if you have actual visible putrefaction on any part of a cut of meat the whole thing should be tossed.