cured brined chicken breast. Smoke then poach or poach then

[markjass]

I have just cured and brined (21 sal) some chicken breasts for 2 hrs. They are skinless. I want to poach the breasts. Outside air temperature is 17 degree C and the temperature inside my cold smoker is about 19 degrees C (well into the danger zone). I plan to cold smike the skinless breasts for two hours and then poach them. Is it safe to do things this way around or should I poach then bake.

After this I am going to smoke 1 kg of merrguez sausages (yup my lamb saga goes on; this time they are going to be right). I gave the last lot away at work and got a response of aha they are ok. Your other stuff is much better (told everyone that they were made with collagen rather than with lamb or pork. No one gave a hoot what the casings were made of).

[markjass]

I smoked it then poached it. I enough for 5 meals. All gone now with no ill effects. However does that mean that I was lucky or that the process was good!

[Chuckwagon]

Hi Mark,
If you go to this link http://wedlinydomowe.pl/en/viewtopic.ph ... ight=#8556 and scroll down the page a bit, your answer is outlined in blue ink. I got a lot of criticism when I wrote this and a few members just didn't want to hear it. I backed up my writing with scientific fact and yet found a few people willing to argue the point I made. Your question is an important one and very much worth studying. In the link, I explain why people just cannot smoke raw food. It is dangerous in any respect as smoke cuts off oxygen. Always, always... cook it... then, smoke it OR do it simultaneously. Please read the link, then if you have questions, give me a shout. Glad to help if I can.

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

[markjass]

Hi CW

First off research based practice is the gold standard (where I work they call it evidence based practice). Anyway I have got myself confused here. What I did was brine the chicken with a cure in it. I then smoked it at a temperature that is smack in the middle of the danger zone (however the chicken had been cured) after two hours smoking I then poached it. Would the cure of 'protedted the the chicken during the smoking' and then the the poaching killed the bacteria?

I know that cooking kills bacteria, but does not destroy the toxins. Lets switch things around. If a cured product is poached and then smoked. The process of poaching will kill the bugs and then the smoking will flavour the ckicken. By poaching there will be less bacteria present on the surface of the meat before poaching.

Ok so why is it ok to smoke a cured sausage (mince has a very large surface area) in the danger zone and then gradually bring the temperature up. How is that different to smoking a cured chicken and then poaching it?

[Butterbean]

Your procedure sounds like an aweful lot of trouble to smoke chicken. Why not brine it with cure and cook it with smoke? Or simply add liquid smoke to the the brine then poach it?

The process you are doing sounds like you have things covered on the botulism side but you have raw chicken that is sitting out for 2 hours and other things can grow albeit at a slower pace but they still grow.

The way I look at things is its a race against time. You can slow the growth of these things down but you can't stop them till all the variables are met. By cold smoking it first you are adding unnecessary time to the equation and what happens if you don't fully cook one piece - it will be loaded up with two hours more pathogen growth than necessary and for no reason other than you are using a very cumbersome procedure.

Cold smoking chicken scares me.

[Chuckwagon]

Mark, I have to agree 100% with Butterbean. He is absolutely correct in saying:

Your procedure sounds like an aweful lot of trouble to smoke chicken. Why not brine it with cure and cook it with smoke? Or simply add liquid smoke to the the brine then poach it?

The process you are doing sounds like you have things covered on the botulism side but you have raw chicken that is sitting out for 2 hours and other things can grow albeit at a slower pace but they still grow.

The way I look at things is its a race against time. You can slow the growth of these things down but you can't stop them till all the variables are met. By cold smoking it first you are adding unnecessary time to the equation and what happens if you don't fully cook one piece - it will be loaded up with two hours more pathogen growth than necessary and for no reason other than you are using a very cumbersome procedure.

Cold smoking chicken scares me.

Shucks pal, ya just can't argue with someone who is right!

Best Wishes,
Chuckwagon

[Butterbean]

I'm glad its not just me. There are only a few things I cold smoke. I view it as a way to dehydrate certain foods and to add the smoke to it. I read an interesting article from the Food Safety people in the UK and they were saying that one of their main concerns is people cold smoking fish without a cure. According to their research, botulism is quite rare in fish from the North Atlantic and people have gotten away with doing it this way for centuries but with world trade as it is more fish were coming in from different areas and these fish are anything but botulism free. They weren't painting a gloom and doom picture of things but they did predict the incidence of botulism would increase due to this.

One other thing that I'd be concerned with is placing the merguez in the smoker after it has had raw chicken sitting in it for two hours. This seems like the ideal situation for some cross contamination.