chicken dilema! advice asap please!

[LacyLeggins]

AIBU to consider cooking the chicken that was to be used by yesterdays date? i bought it yesterday reduced and forgot to freeze it, so will it be ok for me to cook now? its a free range one so quite expensive.

TIA x

I would open it, smell it and in all probability use it.

I would cook it but probably overdo it to be on the safe side.
There was life before sell-by dates.

Unanimous. Don't do what I did and make stock out of the left overs. I spent a good 45 minutes pulling bits of dange and bone out of gloopy fatty liquid.

I would. We're talking hours past the date. As long as it's well cooked, I don't see a problem.

Loook at it
If it looks ok, smell it
If it smells ok, cook it and tastes it
If it tastes ok, eat it

Is it 'sell by' or 'best before' or 'use by' (those are in increasing order of how seriously you should take it)

theres a 'display untill' and a 'use by'. they both say 13th october. im off to have a sniff!

If it smells a bit funny, I have occasionally been known to rinse it under the cold tap. Smell it again and it's usually fine. This is probably not the advice from the dept of health but I've never had food poisoning from doing it...

Having just given my DH and myself a hideous bout of food poisoning for the past two days cooking a chicken on monday just one day past its sell by date, I really, really wouldnt. It smelt ok, but we have been so ill.

Sniff test then cook, hasn't failed me yet.

It should be fine! Obviously sniff it.

Lambzig- are you sure it's food poisoning from meat past its use by date, or something like salmonella that would have been present on and in the chicken even before the use by date?

I used to know someone who worked testing food, and deciding on use by dates etc. He said that most products have at least a days grace, taking into consideration storage conditions. He said the only thing he wouldn't eat after it's date was bagged salad!

It will be fine just make sure it's cooked right through - this exactness of use by date just leads to so much waste - a day later and it will be totally off - no way (unless you kept it at a nice warm temperature).

My grandma used to cook an onion spiked with rosemary inside chickens, she never did it with butcher's chicken, just supermarket ones as she felt they needed something to "disinfect" them. I don't know if there is science behind that, but she never got food poisoning or gave it to anyone else. I would just cook it very thoroughly.

I'm with lurch lover, give it a good rinse under very cold running water, wang a lemon up its bum and cook it thoroughly

Cooked thoroughly should be fine. Done it too.

"I spent a good 45 minutes pulling bits of dange and bone out of gloopy fatty liquid."

Can I recommnend a 'seive'...? Place large bowl under seive and tip pan contents into it. Stock runs through holes. Bones and skin stay on top. Fat eventually rises to the top and can be spooned off. @OP Chicken will be fine 1 day after sell-by date if it has been in the fridge.

I'd have a sniff and go by that. It's usually fairly obvious when it's gone wrong. blargh.