OnTheTable: You’re Overcooking Your Chicken

Americans overcook their poultry. Chalky and dry, flavorless and rather boring, it’s no wonder that most people view chicken as a budget protein. People are scared of “underdone” chicken; kinda like they’re scared of pressure-cookers and raw eggs. These are things that supposedly kill and maim, or at least make sick.

Erroneous assumptions such as these are in the crosshairs of On The Table’s quest to facilitate better food through better education. So, dispel your preunderstandings of scary chicken, and let science better your food.
Obliterating foodborne illness
The culprit is salmonella: an incredibly robust bacteria, existing in temperatures 35-117F, according to a recent blogpost by Thermoworks, the makers of On The Table’s preferred food-thermometers. You should be scared of salmonella, yes; but cooking the bird until it deflates like a Chevy Chase Christmas turkey is not the answer.

While the USDA recommends cooking poultry to a salmonella scorching, internal temperature of 165F, Thermoworks cites James Beard award winning food author, J. Kenji López-Alt, who has proven the efficacy of low-temperature cooking. Kenji López-Alt notes that killing salmonella (and other bad bacteria) is not merely a matter of temperature; it’s a matter of temperature and time. Both of which are variables in the outcome of the “log reduction” of microbes.

The Cleaning Industry Research Institute (CIRI.org) explains “log reduction” as a mathematical term employed to communicate the exponential decrease in the “relative number of live microbes eliminated from a surface by disinfecting or cleaning [or cooking].”

A 7-log10 reduction results in the number of germs decreasing by ten million times—essentially the elimination of 99.99999% of all germs. While little, short of incineration, will guarantee 100% germ-free food, a 7-log10 reduction is the result of following the USDA’s recommendation of cooking your chicken to 165F. Yet Kenji López-Alt notes that the same 7-log10 reduction can be achieved at a lower temperate if time is taken into consideration.
Time is on your side
Kenji López-Alt discovered a 7-log10 reduction (i.e., 99.99999% bacteria-free) in his chicken when an internal temperature of 136F was held for 63.3 minutes. Now, most of us don’t have the requisite and costly sous-vide/low-temp-water-oven to hold 136F for 63.3 minutes, let alone the extra hour of cook-time. But none of that is necessary at 150F, which is required for a mere 2.7 minutes in order to achieve a 7-log10 reduction.

Why you should care
Here is what Kenji López-Alt observed as he cooked chicken samples to different temperatures (source: ThermoWorks): 

140°F	Pinkish-tinged and almost translucent; extremely soft, with the texture of a warm steak; fleshy.
145°F	Pale, pale pink but completely opaque; very juicy, a little soft. This is Kenji’s favorite doneness temp.
150°F	White and opaque, juicy, and firm.
155°F	White and opaque, starting to turn a little bit stringy; bordering on dry.
160+°F	Dry, stringy, and chalky.

So, if you are ready to forego chalky/dry poultry, and experience what chicken was meant to taste like, unsheathe your thermometer and give it a go.

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