Sam and Ella

[lv2ck]

I just cooked some chicken for later use. I don't like to put hot food in the fridge but, if I leave it out to cool first will I DIE from Sam and Ella's Evil hand?

[esgunn]

I haven't died or gotten sick yet...I also thaw food on the counter - Oh the shock of it all!

[HomeCulinarian]

We call Salmonella "Sam & Ella", too. My son got a bad case of it working with raw chicken without gloves on ... he had a cut on his hand. Boy was he sick, we had to take him to the emergency room twice for it because he was so dehydrated! He is very careful with chicken ever since.

Anyway, I will leave cooked chicken out during dinner until clean up, so I'm guessing less than an hour and have never had a problem. I googled the question and saw one post said up to 2 hours, most said 1 hour or less.

[bjcotton]

I have always left chicken out/covered until it cooled. It is usually still slightly warm, so I'd guess about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Never had any problems.

[Harborwitch]

Depending on how it's cooked? Chicken freaks me out - I become the "sani-queen freak" when working with it. Jen turned off the burner under a huge pot of stock one night - it was still 100 degrees in the morning but I dumped it.

If it's just pieces I'd just cool them as quickly as possible - bags of ice or "coolie packs" and then into the fridge.

I'm doing the ServSafe course on line now - jeeze; the things that never scared me before are now terrifying!

[cjs]

that course will really wake a person up, eh Sharon?

Erin, you scare me - it only takes one time.....

[Harborwitch]

Sheesh! Talk about the fear of Food!