Duck and goose have never been as popular in North America as they are in Europe and

China. We cannot attribute their lack of popularity to their flavor, which is excellent. Perhaps it

has more to do with turkey getting a leg up by winning the national bird contest way back when.

Turkey and chicken won out even before people began to worry about the higher fat of duck and

goose.

A 2-month-old duck has a dressed weight of around 6 pounds (2.7 kg). Geese are allowed

to live to the ripe old age of 3 to 5 months and have an average dressed weight of 10 to 11

pounds (4.5 to 5 kg). Consider either one for an occasional meal as a change from everyday

chicken. If you're watching your fat intake, stick to skinless breast meat.

Safe Chicken

No serious outbreaks of food poisoning have been associated with poultry. That isn't

because the chicken industry standards are markedly more hygienic than the rest of the meat

industry. It has more to do with the common knowledge that you cook poultry until it is well

done. If you are served pink or slightly bloody chicken in a restaurant, you send it back to the

kitchen with some angry comments about the intelligence of the chef. Beef steak cooked to the

same undoneness is not only acceptable—many diners demand it. The internal temperature of

completely cooked chicken meat should be a minimum of 150°F (66°C), measured in the center

of the thickest piece. At this temperature no red or even pink tinge remains in the juice, although

a slight pink in the meat is not harmful.

The meat itself is not a safety problem. Fresh meat from healthy chickens is as sterile as

the surgeon’s scalpel. Contamination comes from various sources, particularly from hands,

during processing, packaging, shipping and all the handling along the way.

Safety expert traced several food poisoning outbreaks in the U.S., starting in 1993, to a

new strain of an otherwise benign bacteria known simply as E. coli. (For discussion, see Safety

in Meat chapter). No major outbreak affected any poultry but it very much worried the poultry

industry. All it takes is one outbreak to have consumers stampede from chicken to red meat,

seafood or no meat at all. Cleanliness and hygiene in poultry processing plants has reached the

level of the sterile environment of a hospital emergency room. This is comforting but we can't

relax our standards in our own kitchens.

Try to avoid growing bacteria, keep poultry in the refrigerator or freezer all the time.

Microbes grow and multiply rapidly if you hold your poultry at temperatures much above your

refrigerator’s, about 40°F (5°C). When you need to thaw frozen poultry, plan ahead and defrost it

slowly in the refrigerator. Not only is this a safer practice but a more gentle way of defrosting,

resulting in juicier, more tender meat. And be sure to cook poultry with no trace of red

remaining.

Cooking Poultry to Perfection

Without doubt, poultry is the most versatile of all meats. We eat poultry any way

imaginable except raw. Chicken, particularly today's quick-raised supermarket broilers, have

relatively little flavor. It is cooking and flavoring that transform that low-flavor chunk of meat

into a delicious dish. Check this out for yourself. Steam or poach a piece of chicken breast and

add nothing but salt. Your cat might even turn its nose up at the bland flavor. But poultry has the

admirable quality of snatching, borrowing and soaking up flavors that you either add directly or

Serious Kitchen Play