The desire for good food in America's kitchens has become a near obsession. With the variety available to consumers, the sky is the limit for food. But there is on caveat that must be adhered at all times to fully enjoy your food: preparation of the food in its raw state. There are guidelines for all foods that ensure the proper handling, cleaning, cutting and refrigerating are met and that your raw foods become the tasty cooked foods you are looking for.
Instructions
Raw Foods
1. Cooking any form of protein, from fish to meat and poultry, it is imperative that you use separate cutting boards, or at the very least, bleached and well cleaned ones, for your raw food preparation. A plastic cutting board is essential so that small particles of food do not get caught in the board like they do with wood boards. Use a bleach solution when cleaning your boards as well.Keeping all raw protein items from any contact of vegetables or other protein items is also needed. This will prevent cross contamination.
2. Cooking seafood requires it be kept chilled during its raw stage. Keeping pieces of fish wrapped in plastic on top of an ice filled bowl while preparing it will insure it stays fresh and will inhibit spoilage. Cleaning your knife between cleaning or cutting fish is another necessary step to prevent cross contamination. Again, keep your fish and its preparation separate from any other raw products and well chilled until cooking.
3. Preparing both beef and pork requires much the same as preparing raw fish. Both need to be cold, both should be separate from any other product and both should have the cutting boards used cleaned very well. An added step in the preparation of pork is placing it on the bottom of your refrigerator in case any of the juices spill over your holding container. This will prevent the juices from contaminating anything if they had a level of food under them.
4. Making any chicken dish is usually the one meat you must be most conscious of when preparing it. Raw chicken juices are the cause of many food illnesses and must be well maintained. Again, clean and bleached cutting boards are essential. Knives should be cleaned as well. The cutting board should have a layer of paper towels under it to insure that no juice escapes. Also, keeping it stored in an aluminum container will insure that there are no cracks that occur in some plastic containers. Keeping it far from any other ingredients will also insure food safety is obtained. Cleaning up after the preparation of chicken must be thorough and include bleach to make sure all food borne microbes are killed.
5. Cooking vegetables is a bit simpler in terms of preparation. Thorough washing of your raw vegetables is very important, even if the bags they come in say they are pre-washed. Keeping them cold after preparing will insure they remain fresh.
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