Roast Chicken- is it cooked? Food safety question.

[Rave]

I roasted a medium-large chicken on Sunday and it turned out lovely. I put a bit of salt and some sage on the outside, and stuffed it with yer original and still the best sage and onion. Then I roasted it for an hour or so covered loosely with foil, before removing the foil for 30-40 minutes to crisp it up. Anyway, we checked it was done by poking a knife right into the breast and legs and making sure the juices run clear- which they did, it was just right.

Anyway, that was all well and good. Later on, I couldn't resist picking a few more hunks of meat off as a late night snack, but I was a bit worried when I found that the meat on the back bit of the chicken (under where the legs sit when the chicken's in the roasting dish) still appeared to have some red/pink juice/jelly stuff in them when I tore a piece off. Is this because that bit wasn't cooked properly or does a bit of residual blood gather there during cooking and colour the meat a bit? I haven't got any food poisoning yet, and it doesn't matter this time round as I'm going to boil the carcass up tonight for soup, but for future reference I'd like to know. If it isn't cooked properly, what can I do to make sure that it cooks all the way through in future? I'm pretty sure we defrosted it properly, but there's a small chance that it wasn't thawed all the way through. It was quite a fatty chicken so the back bit should in theory have had a preoper immersion in boiling fat for most of the cooking time.....

TIA,

Rich :¬)

[Blub2k]

Hi Rave seeing how no one else has taken up this one I'll have a go. The chicken can sometimes still have a few red bits close to the bone now and again even when fully cooked, if it was frozen beforehand though I would be very wary. If I was you I would get myself a thermometer which you should be able to buy in any kitchen store and you need to bury it deep in the chicken and check that it has reached a temperature of at least 65' throughout then you know it is safe.

[Rave]

That's a good idea- I'll look out for one of those.

Cheers,

Rich :¬)

[Honoop]

Only thing I know about Roasting Chickens is that if you stick a knife into the flesh and the juices run clear then its cooked.... if not bung it in for a bit longer.

Thats about the extent of my usefulness Im afraid!

[Rave]

Hehe, cheers. I'm pretty sure this one was actually cooked and I was just being paranoid- when I tore it up this evening to make soup it all looked fine in the daylight. The soup ended up a little bit tasteless though, I should have put a chicken stock cube in or something.

Rich :¬)