AIBU to refuse to eat chicken defrosted this way?

[SleepRefugee]

My MIL tends to buy big packs of 6 chicken breasts, but rarely cooks more than 1 or 2 at a time.

So, the remainder of the open pack (just open, no fresh layer of clingfilm or anything) is put in the freezer and then defrosted by leaving it on a sunny window sill from morning to evening (again, not covered and no plate underneath).

Surely this is just asking for food poisoning? Or am I being too precious, as my MIL likes to imply ("never did anybody any harm", after all...)?

On top doh

Thanks for this thread - reminded me I needed to get a chicken out of the freezer for tomorrow!

I take a much more relaxed view of useby dates etc than most people on MN, but I would absolutely not leave chicken to defrost uncovered all day at warm room temperature. Covering raw meat is a necessity whether it's in the freezer, the fridge or out on a worktop. I'd defrost it at room temperature for a few hours at most, and not in a warm place. I always take great care to clean up anything that's come in contact with raw meat - knives, chopping boards, worktop, my hands, the taps - in very hot, soapy water, with all items well rinsed afterwards. Fingers crossed, no instances of upset stomachs here for a long, long time.

She reminds me of my grandmother. When i last visited we arrived in the evening. Her kitchen was clean and tidy with just a le creuset on the work top.

The following evening, now please remember that it was summer in the South of France, it was revealed that the le creuset in fact contained bolgnase sauce cooked prior to our arrival at some unspecified time so we ended up eating it after it had been sitting out for 24 hours at the very least, probably rather longer given that she is most awake and with it in the mornings.

YANBU

my parents are similar.
they 'never get ill' funny though they get a lot of 'indegestion'

Actually, you want to meet my spanish relatives. When we took the inlaws over to meet them, my uncle made a chicken stew - he threw a dozen frozen chicken breasts straight from the freezer into the boiling stock.

My mil pretended she'd eaten on the plane.

Sunny that's ok they will be boiling for a long time.

I use chicken breasts from frozen. Throw into a boiling stew they defrost in minutes.

Oh right frozen, not good door forgot about that but.

Ha ha yes it reminds me of my mother-in-law too.

Several times we have arrived at her house late one night to find a meal she has just cooked sitting cooling on the worktop. It will then sit there all night and the next day until the evening, whereupon she will heat it up and serve it to us.

To be fair we've never been ill but this sort of behaviour has caused me much stress over the years!

And there was the time she had defrosted some chicken breasts in the microwave to the point where the edges had cooked, put it in the fridge overnight and cooked it the next day.

I can't even remember if we actually ate that meal in the end but still remember the stress!

I doubt that, combust. A dozen frozen chicken breasts would bring the temperature of the boiling stock right down and it would take ages to get back to boiling temperature. Even when it was boiling again, it would take quite a time for the breasts to cook through to the middle. The outsides would be cooked long before the middle which makes it likely that either the chicken will be taken out before it's properly cooked through, or a large part of the chicken flesh will be at blood temperature for a long time, which is just what bacteria like. Just not worth the risk.

I used to have a flatmate who cooked a whole chicken (inards pack and everything) on a sunday and would eat from it all week.
it would sit in the pot on the floor of his room. at mealtimes he would take it to the kitchen and bring it to the boil, take out the day's portion and then put it back into his room.

allmimsy- but I don't cook 12 chicken breasts this way. I would only cook 3 or four. After a few minutes i fish them out and cut them up- then back in the pot.

The dozen chicken breasts in question did boil for approx 6 hours. They actually tasted like rubber.

This thread has made me wonder about something my DSIL does when staying at my parents. She is from Thailand, and is very game at trying all the fairly traditional/bland food my DM provides. But as they tend to stay for 3 weeks, understandably DSIL also prepares herself some more familiar food occasionally.

So she will cook up some rice, and some curry, and leave them in pots on the side, and eat out of them for several days. Admittedly, this is always at Christmas time, but in a centrally-heated house.

I am surprised that she never seems to be troubled by any food poisoning from the rice, if nothing else. She says that it would go bad if you put it in the fridge.

So, my question is, why doesn't she get poorly? Is it because she's built up a tolerance to the bugs in question?

Sleep refugee: thats it. Many of that generation think of food poisoning as big things like the canned corned beef scandals 30 or 40 years ago. Or the idea of everyone at a restaurant or event being made ill. all their lives they have had mild illnesses, that they dont associate with food poisoning. Vague illness is just a passing thing that happens.

I am not saying every mild illness undiagnosed food poisoning. We should all be careful but most food arrives in our homes in reasonably good order, modern food processing means most food is very safe (though the regular contact of large batches of raw food means if there is contamination, it can become very widespread and the media play it up even more. And modern western home design and hygiene standards means our homes are clean enough that the risk of adding contamination is relatively low. Imagine homes of a hundred years ago, if there was running water, it was only to one sink, used for body, clothes, dishes and food. An indoor toilet might well have been in or next to the kitchen. An outdoor toilet might mean a night pot was used, and washed in that one sink. Refrigerators and freezers are common, and helpful even when misused. These days, there is room for a pretty large margin of error. It's not a good idea to push it so far as she does, but many people do.

I guess the consensus on this thread is that a lesson in food hygiene wouldn't go amiss. Thanks, everyone.

You shouldn't defrost meat in the sun, apart from that it's fine

My DH old housemate once cut salad on a chopping board the DH had just used to cut chicken breast for a curry.

He could not see the problem. Yak.

I've had food poisoning and I honestly thought I was going to die because I'm a bit of a Drama Llama.

My ex was absolutely obsessive about chopping boards. I mean, obviously you don't prepare salad after raw meat, but he objected when I did vegetables and meat in the wrong order even when they were going into the same pan at the same time, eg casserole. Which of us WBU?

I get that professional kitchens have different rules because they're doing multiple dishes in a service, but at home?

Mrshathaway I like to chop my meat last. Reason being that if I chop onions, mushrooms, prepare garlic etc then I will often need extra bowls, access to the fridge, garlic press, cutlery drawer etc. I also tidy up the veg, put the onions back in the fridge etc.

If I undertake all that activity with hands, a knife and a chopping board that have been used to chop meat before that - then I risk contaminating my kitchen, door handles, drawers, fridge etc.

So I always chop veg, tidy the area then chop meat on the same board. As soon as I finish the meat chopping board, knife and hands are washed.

I also use plastic chopping boards which can be washed in the dishwasher.

Yes, that's logical, but then effectively that's not all into the same pot anyway (because it's via bowls).

I wash my chopping boards in the dishwasher too - they never feel clean handwashed.