I know in a few recent threads I’ve been pretty pushy about promoting toaster ovens as a great kitchen technology. So now the universe has conspired to temper my hubris.
I’ve come across a neat little recipe that requires me to bake a chicken breast at 450 degrees (F) for 15-20 minutes but my particular toaster-oven only goes up to 425F (which reminds me that there are some limitations to the cheaper models). In a feeble effort to force this recipe to work, I’m asking the expert chefs of the SDMB if there’s a time/temperature conversion that I can make work* with my toaster-oven’s temperature limitation. Since high heat tends to char/sear the outside of a chunk of meat and leave the inside relatively raw, I figure a lower heat will essentially penetrate deeper but require a longer cooking time (and, since I’m cooking chicken and don’t want it undercooked, this is perhaps a good thing).
So can I do this in my toaster-oven at 425 for, say, 20-30 minutes and still have it work out okay? Or do I need to turn on the big oven and heat the whole house just for this one chicken breast?
–G?
*I realize this can’t be taken to extremes, like baking muffins (425F for 8-10 minutes) at exceedingly low temperatures (100F for an hour). I’m just trying to make a small adjustment to compensate for this appliance’s limitation.
WAG but I can’t imagine 25 degrees is going to make all that much difference. I’m guessing the full 20 minutes should be sufficient to cook the meat through, and even with an oven that achieved 450 you’d still need to check it anyways.
I don’t think a difference of 25 degrees is going to make much of an impact on cooking time; most consumer ovens aren’t extremely accurate in the first place. And if you want to be sure you’re cooking your meats ‘properly’, buy yourself an oven thermometer so that you will know when the meat is ‘done’, and just use the recipe timing as a general guideline.
A meat thermometer is an essential item when you’re cooking meat. I ignore times altogether and rely on the internal temperature of the meat. Turkeys, for example, often cook in half the time the label tells you is needed.
Without a thermometer, my advice would be to start by giving the meat an extra minute or two, then poke it with something - when the juices run clear, it’s done.
I have never seen a good temperature/time conversion scale and I think that’s probably because time-per-pound estimates are already so approximate in the first place. (Especially since the time required changes a lot based on the starting temp of the meat - room temp vs refrigerator temp is about a 30 F starting difference. On a large piece of meat, that might be an hour of cooking.)
Thanks, all three of you.
You’ve kinda confirmed my suspicions.
I wanted to check, though, in case an expert came in to say “It’s medically unsafe to do that” or some such – y’know…like partially heating mayonnaise. I don’t want to get food poisoning because I strayed from a critical instruction.
I realized I was in the habit of using lots of salt when I ate Chicken Kiev and decided I needed a way to put the salt into the cooking (as discussed in another thread somewhere around here) instead of afterward. And I remembered making “potato chip chicken” back when I was in Jr. High school.
So I combined the two ideas, stuffing a flattened chicken breast with butter & parsley, folding it over and sealing it with egg, then dredging the whole thing in flour, then egg, then crushed potato chips instead of bread crumbs.
I baked the whole thing for 30 min at 425, microwaved it for a minute (just because I was paranoid about a raw middle), and baked it again for 10 minutes to re-crisp the potato layer. [I probably didn’t need those last two steps, but it set my mind at ease.]
It was the most juicy, tender chicken I’ve ever had – and it was fully-cooked and no extra salt was needed.