Eating chicken that's been defrosted, refrozen and re-defrosted (?!)

[CuriousAboutChicken]

NC for this - my mother has requested I put this to the Mumsnet jury.

She would like to know whether it's OK to eat a chicken curry (homemade) that was cooked, frozen, defrosted on a counter with the lid on, heated up then refrozen. Is this asking for food poisoning?

I always thought you should never re-freeze but google has mixed opinions..

You only refreeze if it's had a state change ie been cooked.

Frozen once (raw)
Thawed (raw)
Cooked
Frozen again (now cooked)
Thawed

= OK

If you add another frozen/thaw cycle between those, even if it's heated through, you're getting to risky territory. It's not quite a "wonder how you're alive" thing though, it's not like it's instant death or anything but you'll have increased your chance for food poisoning substantially, albeit it will be an increase from a miniscule risk to a small one or something. Also the more often you freeze/thaw something it will start to affect the taste and texture adversely, so it probably wouldn't be that nice.

No.