Cooking Meats 101?

[Chief pigmy]

I must begin by apologising if I'm in the wrong place but I have a question about, what I would see to be, the basic fundamentals of cooking meats and with nowhere else to turn the first thing I did was go to Google, which in turn lead me here.
Yesterday morning I returned home from work, to see that my Landlord had prepared a curry before leaving for work himself and left it in the slow cooker to cook (we shall brush over the fact he forgot to turn it on for just 1 second). To my amazement he had not sealed the chicken before adding it to the cooker. When I was younger my Mum always drilled into me that you should ALWAYS seal off meat before adding it to a sauce, in order to kill off any bacteria on the outside. I understand that my Mum was right to say this, but does that make it a fundamental rule, ie is my Landlord going to make himself and his son rather ill by doing this? If so, what meats can and can't be done this way?

 

[rascal]

I must begin by apologising if I'm in the wrong place but I have a question about, what I would see to be, the basic fundamentals of cooking meats and with nowhere else to turn the first thing I did was go to Google, which in turn lead me here.
Yesterday morning I returned home from work, to see that my Landlord had prepared a curry before leaving for work himself and left it in the slow cooker to cook (we shall brush over the fact he forgot to turn it on for just 1 second). To my amazement he had not sealed the chicken before adding it to the cooker. When I was younger my Mum always drilled into me that you should ALWAYS seal off meat before adding it to a sauce, in order to kill off any bacteria on the outside. I understand that my Mum was right to say this, but does that make it a fundamental rule, ie is my Landlord going to make himself and his son rather ill by doing this? If so, what meats can and can't be done this way?

My mum was a bit that way inclined, me, I only seal lamb racks then bake in the oven. Steaks are just sealed as it cooks. I don't seal chicken.
Btw I love curries.

Russ

 

[CraigC]

Depends on the meat/poultry/seafood and the results you want. I can see pre-cooking poultry pieces for a recipe like curry, but a whole bird no.

 

[epicuric]

Generally there is only bacteria on the surface of the meat, so browning it will take care of that. In any event, as long as the meat is cooked to above 56 deg C within the sauce this will kill any bacteria regardless as to whether it has been browned or not.

 

[Morning Glory]

Depends on the meat/poultry/seafood and the results you want. I can see pre-cooking poultry pieces for a recipe like curry, but a whole bird no.

If I'm making chicken (or any meat) curry I almost never 'seal' the meat. There is no need unless you want the meat to look browned. The reason for sealing is not to kill bacteria but to colour the meat and to produce the maillard reaction if desired. The latter is the flavour produced by caramelising meat.

Since, particularly in a curry, the meat is going to take on deep flavour & colour from the spices, there is generally no need. Regarding killing bacteria, the important factor is that all the chicken reaches temperature and no pink remains. Sealing the outside doesn't achieve that.

I've seen many recipes for curry which don't involve frying meat first. Rick Stein's India was recently shown on TV and contains many such recipes.

I've recently made a chicken curry and it didn't occur to me to seal off the chicken - and I live to tell the tale! Here it is:

 

[Morning Glory]

Generally there is only bacteria on the surface of the meat, so browning it will take care of that. In any event, as long as the meat is cooked to above 56 deg C within the sauce this will kill any bacteria regardless as to whether it has been browned or not.

With chicken, bacteria if present, can also be inside - hence needing to cook chicken thoroughly.

 

[epicuric]

With chicken, bacteria if present, can also be inside - hence needing to cook chicken thoroughly.

Good point, I wasn't thinking of poultry!