With Christmas round the corner, I am sure you are planning the big Christmas dinner menu. Not only will you cook puddings and pies, but there will be plenty of turkey and chicken recipes too. You will have to buy all that you need days in advance and defrost it on the day you want to cook it. However, when you are defrosting the poultry to be cooked, there needs to be certain methods and precautions that you are required to follow. Defrosting should be done with care in order to ascertain that your meat does not go bad and that there is no bacteria that grows, making the meat potentially dangerous for consumption. The following paragraphs are dedicated to the different ways of defrosting chicken. Cooking frozen chicken will then be easy. Keep reading to find out how.
As mentioned above, defrosting chicken should be done carefully in order to avoid contaminating it. The ways to defrost a chicken are similar to the methods followed while defrosting a turkey. The best way to defrost a chicken is to allow it to be defrosted in the fridge. In order to do this, you will need to plan the defrosting, quite a few days ahead. Defrosting chicken in this manner takes about a day or two to be defrosted correctly. This is the safest method to defrost chicken. If you have any leftover chicken that you do not wish to cook and you need to refreeze it, then if you have defrosted the chicken in the fridge, you can easily refreeze it without fearing contamination. Just remove the chicken from the freezer, put it into the fridge and allow it a couple of days to be defrosted. If you need to cook the chicken for lunch, then you cook let the chicken breasts defrost in the fridge overnight. If you are planning any chicken recipes for the Christmas dinner, I would suggest that you follow this safe method and enjoy your food without worrying.
If you have forgotten to defrost the chicken or if you are in a real hurry to defrost the chicken for barbecue recipes or any other chicken recipes, then take the chicken out of the freezer and set it in a bowl. Keep the cover as it is and set the bowl below a steady stream of water. Ensure that the water is not hot. Hot water will make the chicken bad, so you will need to be extra careful and ensure that there is no hot water used in defrosting. The time taken for the chicken to defrost is about half an hour to 45 minutes. However, if you need to cook the chicken for dinner, just take it out and set it in a big bowl which is filled with cold water. The chicken will defrost in a couple of hours, maximum three hours, when it is defrosted in this way. One thing to remember here, is that the chicken defrosted in this way, cannot be refrozen. If you want to refreeze it, you will need to cook the chicken and then freeze it. Do not attempt to refreeze the uncooked chicken, as the chicken is bound to go bad and get contaminated.
This method of defrosting is generally not recommended. However, if you are falling short of time or want to defrost the chicken in the microwave, then you will need to follow certain instructions to the letter to avoid the chicken from getting cooked or contaminated while defrosting. First thing you need to remember is that a large chicken might not get thawed properly, and as it is necessary that the chicken is completely thawed before it is cooked, it is better that you use this method of defrosting if the chicken is small in size only. Remove completely, any type of covering that protects the chicken. Place the chicken in a baking dish and set the microwave to the defrosting mode. Allow it to defrost for a couple of minutes and do not remove the chicken from the microwave for a further of two minutes. Check it; the chicken should be defrosted. However, if it is not, then you will need to defrost it for another minute. Do not exceed this time as the chances of the chicken cooking while defrosting in a microwave, are high. Once it is completely defrosted, cook it before refreezing. If you freeze it after defrosting the chicken in this way, the chicken will go bad.
Remember, the fridge method of defrosting is the safest and the best method. Hence, planning in advance will be useful. However, if you do need to defrost it in any other method, then you will have to cook it completely before you freeze it and enjoy your Christmas recipes without any worries.
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