Cooking For Engineers

[Luv2Eat]

Hi. I am married to a chemical engineer and need your help explaining something to him. Last night he broiled chicken. Each time he turned the chicken he used a new fork (five in total). How can I explain to him why a new fork is not needed each time? He is worried about the germs from raw chicken. I need the proper technical/scientific explanation or he won't believe me. Thanks!

[GaryProtein]

I guess if he wants to be ULTRA (well beyond necessary) careful, he is doing the right thing. I would never do that. He could temper what he is doing and still be almost as ultra careful if he uses tongs and does not pierce the meat when he turns it and not use fresh tongs for each turn. I think the rest of the civilized world uses whatever they use, and as long as the chicken reaches its prescribed cooking temperature it will be ok. We are all still alive and there aren't many cases of salmonella or other fowl related diseases being reported due to well COOKED chicken with clear running juices. Practically all food contamination comes from unclean hands, not unclean utensils. It would not be a good idea to use the same fork on uncooked chicken as the one you use when serving cooked chicken.

His concern is well taken, but I think he should mellow out.

[eltonyo]

[Yama]

Haha
I don't think you can explain to him if he's that much of a worry wort, but Try this...

If you use the same fork (assuming that bacteria is on the fork), the temperature of the chicken itself should be enough to kill any bacteria that you're transferring to the chicken from the fork. Right? If your chicken is hot enough to kill bacteria, that's what matters.

Or, he could just take a small bowl of water with a teaspoon of unscented bleach in which to keep his fork between rotations.

<-----Chemical Engineer (not that that should matter)

[zspook1]

ibid wash the fork
or let him do the dishes, it is the only time i get any peace...

[Taamar]

If I EVER reused a utensil with raw chicken juice like you suggest I'd be fired (if I was lucky. If not, and the health dept caught me, I'd get fined too). If you don't mind a little salmonella and campylobactor, by all means reuse the fork! You reintroducing bacteria that may not have time to reach a safe temp before being served. Of course, the rules for commercial kitchens are strict because we assume that our product may be eaten by someone with a compromised immune system... for home use in a household of healthy adults you ought to be OK using the same fork until it's time to serve, then using a fresh one.

[cynicalb]

Oh, my, God...How has Homo Sapiens lasted for a few million years???

Eltonyo - thanks for the reality check...

[Reid]

Then you can leave the tongs inside the grill with the handle sticking out so they get heated with the chicken. That's what this EE does.

[snow]

[EngineeringProfessor]

[ditto]

Why not just let him have this one. What's 3 extra forks in the dishwasher if it makes him happy.

Or

Use 16" Tongs.

[blueshrimp]

You could try explaining it in terms of thermodynamics and efficiency.

Explain to him that using 5 forks will require you to wash 5 forks instead of 1.

If you expend, say, x Joules of energy washing one fork, it follows you will expend 5x Joules of energy washing 5 forks. Since you only cook one chicken, if you use only one fork your efficiency (in fork usage units) is equal to 1 chicken divided by one fork = 100%. If you use five forks, the efficiency is reduced to one fifth, or 20%

Any engineer should balk at the inefficiency of this process. Engineers like elegant solutions. A 20% efficient solution (using five forks) is very ugly relative to an optimally efficient solution (using one fork) and will grate on most engineer's sense of aesthetics.

If this still doesn't work, you can then point out the inefficiency not only in energy wasted (you now have to wash 5 forks instead of 1) but also in electricity: you need to run the water 5 times as long to wash 5 forks, that is 5 times as long that the pump is pumping water up your faucet (if you use an electric pump). You could then give him the task of calculating how much the actual volume of water used increases if the faucet is running, say, at a rate of 100 ml a second, how much more water would you waste by washing 5 forks instead of one?

If you are sadistic, you could then ask him to calculate on humanitarian terms, how many afghan villages that wasted water would source, etc etc, ad infinitum.

If you are clever enough with your "problems"/"assignments/tasks to solve" you give him, you will keep him busy and entertained enough to leave you alone in the kitchen as he runs off to the living room searching for pen and paper to perform the calculations.

You're welcome.

[Thor]