The Perdue Chicken Cookbook

She'll take another sniff and then wonder if it was her imagination. It

wasn't. It's just that once the package was opened, the sulfur smell faded

into the air like smoke rings.

If the chicken still smells bad after a couple of minutes, that's an

entirely different story. The problem is bacterial spoilage or rancidity or

both. Return the chicken to the store where you bought it and write to

Frank. If a chicken's been around too long you can smell it, and if you

can't detect it at room temperature, you probably can as it cooks, since

rancidity is more obvious at higher temperatures. Rancidity can occur

without bacteria if the freezer where the meat was stored wasn't cold enough

or if the product was kept there for a very long time, such as more than six

months for uncooked chicken, or more than three months for cooked chicken.

(

By the way, I don't like to focus on this unpleasant stuff, but I do want

you to get your money's worth when you're buying chicken.)

Are chickens given hormones?

Never. I remember when I lived on the West Coast, there was a small

company that advertised that its chickens were grown without hormones. I

thought this was unethical, because it implied that other chickens were

grown with hormones. The fact is none are.

Can I cook frozen chicken, or do I have to let it defrost first?

In a pinch, go ahead, but allow extra cooking time. For the best texture

and tenderness, however, you're better off starting from refrigerator

temperatures; you can be more sure of getting an evenly cooked product.

How long can I keep chicken at room temperature?

From the point of view of food safety, you're taking a risk if you leave it

outside the refrigerator for more than two hours. Unfortunately, bacteria

grow and multiply at temperatures between 40 degrees and 140 degrees, and

they flourish at room temperature. To avoid food borne illness, all foods of

animal origin should be kept either hotter than 140 degrees or colder than

0 degrees. If you know you won't be returning home directly after

shopping, bring along an insulated bag or box to keep cold foods cold until

you can get them into the refrigerator.

Do I need to rinse chicken before cooking?

Advice on this has varied over the years, including the advice Frank gives.

The latest research shows that from a health point of view, washing is not

necessary. Any microbes that you'd wash off will be entirely destroyed by

heat when you cook the meat. It's actually far more important to wash your

hands, your cutting board, and your utensils since they won't be sterilized

by cooking.

How do I get the best flavor?

That depends on whether you're after a mild and delicate flavor, or a

strong and robust flavor. The younger the bird, the milder the flavor. A

game hen, which is five weeks old, will have the mildest flavor of all. A

broiler, at seven weeks, will still have a quite mild and delicate flavor; a

roaster, on the other hand, is usually about five weeks older than a broiler

and it will have a much more pronounced "chickeny" flavor. (Frank and I

enjoy chicken at all ages, but if we had to choose on flavor alone, we'd

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