DH put a full chicken in a cold oven

[Pinkkahori]

Our oven is old, it takes a while to heat up. DH just told me that he forgot to preheat the oven today so he put the chicken in to a cold oven. He didn't allow any additional cooking time.
I didn't eat it but he and the kids did.
I'm worried about the possibility of food poisoning.
Does everyone preheat their oven?
Is it likely to be a problem?

I think under 24 hours you would know whether everyone had food poisoning

Christ, this really went in an unexpected direction from when I read the first post. Huge amounts of misinformation.

Firstly, preheating isn’t a necessity, cooking for sufficient time is. Even in cases of undercooking food poisoning is not guaranteed. The meat needs to be contaminated in the first place. You should gauge whether your meat is cooked properly by eye or a meat thermometer, not purely based on suggested cooking time. in the same way you should judge if meat is off by eye and smell not just the expiry date.

Secondly you can cook a whole chicken from frozen.

I personally cook a large chicken, if spatchcocked for 50 minutes and whole for 1hr 20 at about 230. Never bother to preheat as my oven heats up in under 10. Always fully cooked, could cook for less time but I like crispy skin.

No food poisoning as of yet.

Honestly who still wastes time and electric (especially in the financial climate) pre-heating ovens?

Some things do need a hot oven. eg roast potatoes need the fat to be almost smoking hot before they are put into it. I guess you could argue that you aren't actually putting the veg into a cold oven, just the tin and the fat/oil.

But there are definitely some recipes where the food needs to be at a hot temp straight away, not lingering from cold, or you don't get the same result.

I don't know how any of this equates to neither of us being able to cook a chicken.
I'm a good cook. I know our oven is old and a bit slow to heat so I pre-heat it, cook the chicken according to weight. If it's done, great and if it's not I put it back in.
I wouldn't have cooked it the way DH did but wanted to see if others did and maybe get some reassurance that I wouldn't be facing a sea of vomit at some stage.

The OP said that her oven is an old one that needs preheating.

Obviously there hasn't been a sea of vomit because you would have mentioned it. So how do you feel now about the fact he cooked the chicken differently from you and no-one got ill?
It's good that you're getting him to take responsibility for dinner two nights per week but you need to unclench and let him do it. If he's trying to wiggle out by being incompetent just ignore it. He will not starve. He won't starve or poison your DC. If you think he would starve or poison your DC, then you have much bigger issues than division of labour, wife work and preheating a bloody chicken.

I don't think I'm making any drama.* I* wasn't there for the meal. He mentioned that the chicken wasn't nice and maybe it was because he put it in a cold oven.We discussed it briefly and I came on here to see if there is a consensus on preheating/not preheating.
I haven't mentioned it to him since.

You came on here instead of just checking the chicken yourself? Has it been binned or can you quickly take a look at it and see? Surely when he cut the chicken up to serve it he would have noticed.

Preheating the oven makes no difference to whether or not a chicken is cooked when you take it out, so consensus doesn't matter. You can preheat it and it still wouldn't be ready. You can not preheat it and it's ready.

I didn't say it was new, but it wasn't common in the 1970s, at least round my way.

British people were well known for over cooking their food.

I have eaten loads over undercooked chickens this was how I thought they were meant to be served as a child, never caught food poisoning.

I got home at nearly 10 o clock after a long day followed by a long, boring meeting. I wasn't about to go outside rummaging in the bin.

I posted because I wondered if it was normal to always preheat an older oven.

No reports of anyone being sick so far so all good.
I'm persisting with the DH cooking plan. I have been for a year and there have been varying degrees of success. I don't think he wants to starve/poison anyone.

There's no unclenching necessary. He brought up the subject of the chicken. I wasn't checking up on him.

#chickengate

I’m sorry but how can a fully grown adult not know how to cook a chicken?

My DH wouldn't have the first clue!

I never preheat the oven, but I leave stuff in longer if needs be to compensate. For most fan ovens you don't need to preheat.

Looks like they've dodged anything untoward this time. I agree with PP re weaponised incompetence, though.

Agree with this too. I remember the guide to my new oven had a table listing exactly which items required oven preheating / not

He sounds like a jerk chicken or no chicken.

It really doesn’t! Once the chicken reaches the temperature you have set on the oven, any bacteria present will be destroyed. If you put the chicken into a hot oven, the outside can cook and crisp too quickly, delaying the heat reaching the inside of the chicken.

It really doesn’t! Once the chicken reaches the temperature you have set on the oven, any bacteria present will be destroyed. If you put the chicken into a hot oven, the outside can cook and crisp too quickly, delaying the heat reaching the inside of the chicken

Everything I have ever been told about food hygiene is to put meat in a hot oven and ensure it's cooked through properly.

I have never heard of people not preheating an oven to cook meat until this thread.

I have heard the argument about the heat encouraging bacterial growth as it gets warmer from cold. I don't know how true that is.

This is the advice about cooking meat - mainly because if you don't preheat, then cooking times become longer and harder to follow.

www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/sfbb-caterer-cooking-01-cooking-safely.pdf

I always preheat the oven and I'm now intrigued

If you don't preheat, I assume you have to increase the cooking time, so where is the energy saving?

Does a cold oven work with bread and pizza? pastry?

Just asking if everyone's ok? It's been a few days

... if it looked cooked and didn't have any pink then it was cooked. Instructions on packs usually overshoot on chicken so that they don't get in legal trouble.

You need to get a handle on your anxiety I think. It's not a big deal that it spent 10 minutes less at the correct temperature.

@Pinkkahori

Please read Billy1966's excellent post.

Your H brought up the lack of preheating the oven to scare you.

It's very likely that the oven was in fact properly preheated and the chicken cooked adequately, but he decided to tell you about 'not preheating the oven' in order to freak you out and make you nervous about leaving him to cook.

There was just enough utterly moronic stupidity in the scenario he dreamed up, and danger to the kids, to make you worry. The proof that he made the whole thing up lies in the fact that he told you the story.

This is strategic incompetence brought to very creative levels. No risk to him from eating undercooked chicken. Excellent chance you will be thinking of your children retching into the loo all evening the next time you have a late meeting. Result!

How relaxed and confident are you going to feel the next day you have to work late?
Has he achieved his very clear purpose here?

I’m late to the party, but it’s a revelation to me how many people don’t pre heat their ovens.