# Pink duck but not pink chicken.



## kirkunit

Duck breast in restaurants is often cooked till it is pink. However with chicken we all know it must be fully cooked.

What is the technical reason one bird can be served medium rare but the other well done.

They are both poultry. My understanding is that chicken can lead to salmonella poisoning amongst other bacteria, isn't duck prone to similar issues.


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## phatch

It's mostly the raising conditions. Ducks tend to be raised in better conditions that don't lead to the high contamination found in chicken.

But there are other considerations. Duck breast is dark meat. You can cook that to 160 and still have a lot of pink even though it has hit food safe temps. Granted, you usually cook duck to somewhat less than that. The same holds true for chicken legs. If they hit 160 at the deepest point, they're safe. But the consumer has been trained to think any pink in chicken or turkey is unsafe so it's not marketable to the consumer.

In American Cookery, James Beard makes the same observation about pink turkey legs, that there's nothing wrong with pink legs.

FWIW, I asked the same question 6 years ago. http://www.cheftalk.com/t/29643/duck-doneness


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## michaelga

Depending on cooking technique you will see various levels of pink regardless of what temperature you cook the meat to. ie. smoking etc.

One other thing to understand is that the temperature given by the USDA is the temp at which the bacteria is 'instantly' destroyed.

You can quite safely cook all poultry to a much lower temperature as long as you hold it at that temp for a specific time.

For instance - chicken cooked to 145F must be held at that temp for 8.6 minutes to be pasteurized.

Lower temps with longer times can be achieved but the texture begins to really be challenging for most people.

You can find the details here http://www.fsis.usda.gov/OPPDE/rdad/FSISNotices/RTE_Poultry_Tables.pdf

Raw / barely cooked poultry used to be quite common in Japan as they didn't have the same endemic problems with salmonella - although as demand for meat has increased at the loss of meticulous handling and rearing it has now become a problem.


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## chefedb

Sorry don't agree 150 for 5 hours is still a max of 150 which does not destroy many things.

165 is 165 for a set time.


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## chefbigmike

We were serving orange duck as a special at my restaurant, my exec said it was overdone, but I had 3 guest say it was undercooked, including, one of my FOH managers. he sent it back 3 times. I told him to just leave. I will not ruin a duck for any guest. needless to say the next day he asked or chicken wings, my cooks thought it would be proper to fry them for about 15 minutes. they were crispier than chicharones. yet he loved them. showed the entire staff he didn't know what he wanted.


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## michaelga

chefedb said:


> Sorry don't agree 150 for 5 hours is still a max of 150 which does not destroy many things.


150 degrees for 5 hours = is way overkill It will destroy every thing.

You'd be perfectly safe holding it for 5 minutes at 150 degrees the food would be pasteurized and perfectly juicy and cooked.

One of the common misconceptions is that salmonella is killed magically at a given temperature and that is the only way to kill it.

You can easily kill it by following the FSIS regulations, which depend on holding food at a specific temp for a specific time.

It is a combination of temperature and duration.


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## brandon may

Salmonella in chickens is passed through their feces, and when chickens are fed the feed is spread out on the ground where they poop.  If chickens were fed in another area from where they poop, we could end the raw chicken scare.


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## chefedb

I'll stick with my 160  165 internal on chicken . I have never had anyone get sick and don' intend at my age or all these many years to start.


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## chefhow

Chickens inherently carry salmonella and spread it among themselves pretty easily.


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## petemccracken

chefhow said:


> Chickens inherently carry salmonella and spread it among themselves pretty easily.


Is this because chickens are chickens or because of the way chickens are raised?


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## michaelga

I'd say it's the way their raised - normally they'd be in a flock of about a dozen roaming around the jungles of east asia.

Not exactly the same conditions as below - which is a pretty standard situation.


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## rdm magic

chefbigmike said:


> We were serving orange duck as a special at my restaurant, my exec said it was overdone, but I had 3 guest say it was undercooked, including, one of my FOH managers. he sent it back 3 times. I told him to just leave._ I will not ruin a duck for any guest_. needless to say the next day he asked or chicken wings, my cooks thought it would be proper to fry them for about 15 minutes. they were crispier than chicharones. yet he loved them. showed the entire staff he didn't know what he wanted.


The customer is always right amigo. Do you refuse to do well done steaks too?


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## just jim

rdm magic said:


> The customer is always right amigo. Do you refuse to do well done steaks too?


The customer is not always right, they are always important.

If they expect to have their plate garnished with twenty dollar bills at no extra charge, are they right?

Big Mike also said it was for a FoH manager, so obviously not a real person, more like a lab creation.


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## chefhow

If I remember from my meat science class its a genetic quality they have that has just been exploited in the US.

Remember, we are one of a few countries in the world that actually keeps our eggs cold...


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## michaelga

chefhow said:


> If I remember from my meat science class its a genetic quality they have that has just been exploited in the US.
> 
> Remember, we are one of a few countries in the world that actually keeps our eggs cold...


Not sure exactly what you mean - is it genetics that they can actually survive living in and eating their own shit?

We refrigerate our eggs because we stock-pile them and buy them buy them in large quantities and expect them to last 4-8 weeks something that most everyone else would find disgusting.


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## chefhow

MichaelGA said:


> Not sure exactly what you mean - is it genetics that they can actually survive living in and eating their own shit?
> 
> We refrigerate our eggs because we stock-pile them and buy them buy them in large quantities and expect them to last 4-8 weeks something that most everyone else would find disgusting.


By genetics I mean DNA, like its part of who they are and its is inherently carried by them.

The eggs is actually because we wash the protective layer from the outside of the egg that acts as a barrier keeping oxygen from penetrating the shell.


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## borkbork

In my understanding it's more about processing. Chickens are mass slaughtered then mechanically plucked and chilled in an ice water blood disgusting slurry. This means salmonella in one salmonella in all. Ducks are more valuable and air chilled then tested for salmonella individually. The dirty ones get rejected and the rest don't cross contaminate. I could be wrong, just what I heard from a dartagnan rep


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## kirkunit

Let's say we get into a Time machine and travel back 100 years, before the time of mass produced meats.

Would organically bred chicken be safe to eat if cooked slightly undergone, like duck?


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## borkbork

Absolutely but a few of them would have salmonella


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## cheflayne

toriwasa


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## left4bread

Brandon May said:


> Salmonella in chickens is passed through their feces, and when chickens are fed the feed is spread out on the ground where they poop. If chickens were fed in another area from where they poop, we could end the raw chicken scare.


DING DING DING DING DING!

Well, through their digestive tract, anyways. So let's say that the bird is disease free (I mean, they can't ALL be infected, right?...right?!).

So does that mean that I can eat the chicken raw and be unaffected?

Probably.

Raw chicken has an unpleasant texture. Raw duck, not so much.


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## flipflopgirl

I want to see a vid of chickens being potty trained to not poop where they eat.

They do have a rather short life span so maybe Tyson could create a new job....the chicken diaper application technician?

Just sayin'

mimi


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## michaelga

Probably be easier if it wasn't 1 chicken per 2 square feet as a housing guideline...


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## flipflopgirl

I wrote my English 201 paper on "Diet for a New America" and the conditions were pretty bad then.

Do they still spend their short lives standing on cage wire so the waste can fall thru and it mixes with spilled feed then all is recycled to the feed containers?

Never mind...I don't really want to know.

mimi


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## satch58

This is a disgusting way to raise chickens.


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## satch58

I had duck yesterday at a restaurant, for lunch, and it came out pink with bloody juice on the plate, a most unpalatable looking meal, so I asked for it to be cooked until there was no pink flesh. People seem to think it is safe to eat, but I was not willing to take the risk. Besides, I couldn't get my knife to cut the flesh---it was tough.

I prefer any meat I eat to actually look dead!!!


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## oldschool1982

Call me old fashioned but duck is at it best when served Med Rare. I guess the table side duck press is out of the question too?





  








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oldschool1982


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Oct 4, 2014


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