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Lowest temp for chicken?

7K views 8 replies 4 participants last post by  phatch 
#1 · (Edited)
Have any of you experimented with sous-vide or low temperature chicken cooking? I was just reading an article stating that you can cook chicken in a 160F oven for a few hours, until you reach an internal chicken temperature of 145F.

That sounds rather low to me, I don't usually use a thermometer but I can't imagine a chicken getting fully cooked in a 160F oven... obviously because I've never tried it.

Anyone tried something like that?

I remember Thomas Keller serving his sous vide chicken "medium rare", definitely pink in the middle... wonder how that went with the restaurant customers.

I will now leave you all with some inspiring photographs of chicken sashimi. No no, those are not photographs of meat counters. Those are plates of chicken sashimi as brought to the customer tables in Japanese restaurants. Bon appétit.

 
#4 · (Edited)
Now that I'm at my computer rather than my phone.....

See http://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-sous-vide-chicken-breast.html Note that pasteurization is about TIME at a PARTICULAR TEMPERATURE. With chicken breast, that's something like 30 minutes at 140. So the meat is 140 for that whole time, not just arriving at 140. The first 30 minutes is the meat coming up to temp.

With an oven, you're going to have food in the danger zone too long. The heat transfer rate is just too slow. Water is a much better conductor of heat.

The linked article (keep scrolling, it's long with lots of content) also shows the different results at different temperatures and times, mostly how moisture and texture changes.

I've done chicken breast this way. And a pork sirloin roast The chicken is white throughout. The pork just tinged pink evenly with a thin band of gray from the finishing sear.
 
#8 ·
I won't complete disregard the notion of chicken prepared medium, but I just don't know that I would really care for the texture.  I feel the same way about MR pork.  It's not that I'm sqeemish about getting sick, at least with pork, it's just a texture and taste thing.  Unlike raw beef, the taste of which I love!!!  I just don't care for the taste of raw pork and the texture I don't find all that appealing, compared to beef.  I wonder if I might feel the same about chicken.
 
#9 ·
The sous vide was very surprising to me. I've been disappointed in chicken breast for so long. It's so often dry, stringy, and bland. Even with inexpensive IQF breast it turns out great. I've mostly been buying and cooking dark chicken meat because it has more flavor, unless I was buying a whole intact chicken.

I too don't think I'd find the texture appealing of chicken that rare. It can be offputting even just rareish. But Sous Vide at least isn't like that. Perhaps if I were eating a "wild" chicken, the flavor and texture would be different enough to be worth it? 

I don't mind the texture of rare pork, depending on the cut of course. As to sashimi style pork, I've never gone that rare with it to know. 
 
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