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Am I the only one who thinks the 4 hour rule on rice is overcautious after reading a food lab study?
I was reading a food safety write up from a lab in Davis, California last week and it said cooked rice left out at room temp grows Bacillus cereus fast, like the window is closer to 1 hour, not the 4 I always heard in kitchens. But then my old sous from a spot in Phoenix told me he left rice out overnight for years and never got sick, and half the cooks I know say the same thing. So now I am stuck between the science and the guys who have done it for 20 years without a problem. Where do you all land on this, do you toss it after an hour or ride it out longer?
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taylor_miller102d ago
Rice is one of those things where the science and the old school cooks are both kind of right but talking past each other. The lab study is testing a worst case, like rice sitting at perfect warm room temp with a heavy spore load from the start. Bacillus cereus is real and it grows fast, the one hour thing is for the danger zone temps, not just any room. The guys who left it out overnight mostly got lucky, and also their rice cooled down fast enough or the batch was clean enough that the spores never took off. Problem is you cant tell by looking or smelling, and the bad case hits you 6 to 15 hours later with vomiting or the other end. My rule is simple, rice gets cooled in a shallow pan within an hour of cooking and into the fridge, and if it sat out past 2 hours it goes in the trash. Not worth a coin flip on food poisoning for a dollar of rice. If you really want to push it, reheat it screaming hot and eat it same day, but dont batch cook it and leave it on the counter expecting it to be fine every time.
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