Easter and Passover take place next week, and the USDA wants you to be aware of food safety issues. Remember that home-cooked food causes many foodborne illnesses every year. In fact, a 2006 study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that one in seven private home kitchens in the United States would fail a restaurant-style health inspection.
So follow these guidelines to keep your family safe this holiday season.
Brisket, ham, and eggs are the foods commonly served at this time of year. All can be problematic and you must follow food safety guidelines to ensure these foods don’t make someone sick.
Ham
Read the label carefully when you buy a ham. It must state whether it’s ready to eat, if it should be refrigerated, and how it should be heated or cooked. Obey expiration dates carefully.
The USDA’s Ham Cooking Chart is valuable for calculating the time your ham should cook. Remember that fresh hams and hams that must be cooked before eating should reach 160 degrees F on a food thermometer.
Ready-to-eat hams, such as spiral-cut hams, can be reheated. Again, use a food thermometer to check the temperature. Heat the ham about 10 minutes per pound to 140 degrees F. And never cook ham in an oven set lower than 325 degrees F.
Leftover ham can stay in the fridge for five days. After that time, it can be frozen for one to six months if it’s properly wrapped in freezer-safe materials. Follow the directions in the USDA’s Ham Storage Chart.
Eggs
Eggs are a common source of food poisoning. Salmonella is found in many raw eggs. If you hard-cook eggs and dye them for Easter, remember that they must stay refrigerated. Never leave cooked eggs out of refrigeration longer than two hours.
Before cooking, examine the eggs carefully. If they are cracked or dirty, discard them. To hard-cook eggs, place a single layer of eggs in a pan and cover with cold water. Bring to a rolling boil, cover, and let stand off the heat for 15 minutes for large eggs. Then run cold water into the pan until the eggs are cold, and refrigerate. Hard-cooked eggs can stay in the fridge for one week; no longer.
Be sure you use only food-grade dyes when coloring eggs for Easter. And if you want to use eggs for an Easter egg hunt, think about using chocolate eggs, or plastic eggs filled with candies and treats instead of hard-cooked eggs. A hard-cooked egg left out of refrigeration can cause a lot of trouble.
Passover Seder
A Seder means preparing food ahead of time. So make sure all the food is safely refrigerated after it’s prepared. Add always discard food that has been out of refrigeration for two hours, or one hour if the air temperature is above 90 degrees F.
Cold foods such as gefilte fish should be served straight from the fridge.
Brisket is usually prepared in advance, since it requires such a long and slow cooking time. You can keep the brisket in the fridge for 3 to 5 days before cooking, or freeze it for up to a year. Thaw the meat in the refrigerator only; this can take days if the cut is large.
The brisket must be covered and cooked in moist heat. Cook to 160 degrees F (actually, to be tender, the brisket should reach 185 degrees F so the fat and connective tissue melt), and let it stand for 15-20 minutes before slicing to serve.
You can cook the brisket, cool it in the fridge, then reheat it just before serving. When reheating, make sure the brisket reaches 165 degrees F.
Store cooked brisket in the refrigerator up to 3 to 4 days, or freeze it up to three months. And wrap it in freezer-safe plastic wrap or paper.
And remember that the USDA offers helpful videos about food safety you can review.
Have a wonderful celebration!
