Prepare for Handling Raw Poultry

Today I'm making turkey breast in the slow cooker.

Handling poultry we need to be careful about its juices as it relates to potential salmonella.

Here are a few helpful tips to prepare turkey or chicken in an orderly way:

1.  Thaw poultry in the refrigerator in a tub.  Chances are high that some liquid may leak out of the packaging and you don't want that in your fridge.

Here's what I thawed mine in and sure enough there was quite a bit of liquid in the bottom today.

2. Frequent hand washing is important when working with poultry.   Of course, you'll need to have hand soap nearby:



3. Lay out paper towels for hand drying.  It's safer to use disposable paper towels than a towel you might touch later.  If you're like me, getting paper towels off the roll is sometimes tricky.  If you have your paper towel laid out, you won't need to touch the roll.

3.  Also lay out a shopping bag you don't mind of disposing of.  Once you remove the packaging and any excess skin, etc. from the poultry, place it all in the bag.  This will help prevent drippings should you try to put these things directly in the trash.

Otherwise, you might drip on the floor (and your pet may lick it), or you may drip on the trash can. You may drip on your counter, and if your trash is under the sink, you may contaminate the door handle getting to it. You may get to the trash can and realize there's no room for what you're disposing of, leading to a new problem.

4. Here's what you'll have after loading the prepared bag:

Wash your hands before transferring the bag to the trash.  If garbage pickup isn't for a week or so, you may want to place this in the freezer to avoid rot. 

5.  Here's my slow cooker cooking the turkey:

6.  Now you've needed to handle the top of the soap bottle and the tap handle, so sanitize those when done.  

(Above I've also placed a toothpick on the counter since I wanted to mention it's important to lay out any other dishes or utensils you might use.  When I make chicken cordon bleu, I secure it with toothpicks.  It's always problematic to try to try to retrieve a toothpick after touching poultry.)