Holiday Cooking

Tyler Betzhold, executive chef at UR, can offer cooking and food safety tips to help survive the holiday season. He says leftovers should not be kept longer than seven days. He also suggests buying an inexpensive bimetallic thermometer to make sure turkey or other main courses are cooked to a proper and safe temperature.

Betzhold’s tips for holiday cooking include:

• When it comes to turkey, poultry has quite a bit of possible bacteria like salmonella if undercooked, and elderly and younger populations are much more susceptible.  
• Use the appropriate cooking method and proper temperature and time. Simply googling the proper ratios for weight and cooking techniques will provide good guides on this and make sure your turkey is cooked fully to 165 degrees.
• Your turkey should not be out of refrigeration for extended periods of time before cooking. Keep it properly refrigerated.
• A turkey that sits out for extended periods of time at room temperature even though you cooked it properly still creates a risk for possible bacteria growth.
• It’s always good to remove the bird once cooked fully and allow to rest before enjoying. But after serving, your turkey shouldn’t sit out for more than two hours before placing into refrigeration.

Contact Sunni Brown, director of media and public relations, at sbrown5@richmond.edu to connect with Betzhold today.