Safe Food Handling, Storage and Cooking Methods

Keeping food safe from delivery to plate

In a professional kitchen, safe food is not luck, it is habit. The same care runs from the moment a delivery arrives to the moment a dish is served. This module works through the whole chain: - Hygiene: keeping yourself and your work area clean.\n- Storage: holding food at the right temperature and using stock in order.\n- Avoiding cross-contamination: keeping raw and cooked food apart.\n- Cooking methods: choosing a method and cooking food thoroughly. General workplace health and safety and first aid have their own module. Here the focus is FOOD safety and the ways food is cooked.

Words for food safety

Five terms you need before you use them. Learn what each one means.

Match each cooking method to what it is

Storing raw against cooked food

One of the simplest ways to keep food safe is storing raw and cooked food correctly. The rule is worth learning exactly.

Which prevents cross-contamination?

To stop harmful bacteria spreading from raw chicken to a salad, what should a cook do?

• Use separate boards and knives, and keep raw meat away from and below other food
• Cut the chicken and the salad on the same board to save time
• Store the raw chicken above the salad in the fridge
• Leave both out at room temperature together

Tap the two good hygiene habits

Tap the TWO habits that keep food safe in a kitchen.

• Washing hands thoroughly before handling food
• Using separate boards for raw meat and ready-to-eat food
• Tasting food with the same spoon again and again
• Leaving cooked food sitting warm on the counter for hours

The danger zone and temperature

Temperature is the single most powerful tool for keeping food safe, because it controls how fast bacteria grow. Between roughly 5 and 63 degrees, bacteria multiply fastest, so this range is kept as short as possible. The fridge is held below 5 degrees and the freezer near minus 18 degrees, slowing bacteria right down. When cooking, food is heated until it is piping hot right through, around 75 degrees in the centre, which destroys harmful bacteria. Leftovers are cooled quickly, kept cold, and reheated only once, until piping hot. Keep food out of that warm middle range and most risks fall away.

Pick the true food-safety facts

Select the TWO statements that are true.

• Raw meat should be stored below ready-to-eat food in the fridge
• Cooking food thoroughly helps destroy harmful bacteria
• The danger zone is the safest place to keep food for a long time
• Using a single board for everything is good hygiene

Order how to store a food delivery safely

Put the steps of taking in and storing a food delivery safely in a sensible order.

• Check the delivery is fresh and within its date
• Move chilled and frozen food into storage quickly
• Store new stock behind the older stock, using First In First Out
• Keep raw meat separate and below other foods
• Record temperatures and label anything opened

One raw chicken, start to plate

Follow a single raw chicken through a kitchen and see how each step keeps it safe.\n\nAt delivery: the cook checks it is cold and within its date, then moves it quickly into the bottom of the fridge, below the ready-to-eat food so nothing can drip down onto them. In preparation: it is cut on a board kept only for raw meat, and the cook washes both hands before and after touching it, so no bacteria travel across to the salad. In cooking: it is cooked right through until piping hot in the middle, which destroys the harmful bacteria it may carry. Afterwards: any leftover is cooled quickly, covered and kept cold, never left sitting in the warm middle range where bacteria grow. At every step the same idea returns: keep it cold, keep it clean and apart, and cook it right through.

Complete the food safety facts

The spread of harmful bacteria from raw food to cooked food is _____. The temperature range in which bacteria multiply fastest is the danger _____. Using older stock before newer stock is called _____. Keeping yourself clean so you do not pass on bacteria is personal _____.

Build a food safety point

Choose the words that complete this statement about keeping food safe.

The food safety run

Five questions on keeping food safe. Three lives.

Keep the kitchen safe

Read each kitchen moment and choose the safe action, then think about why.

• A cook has just handled raw meat and now wants to prepare a salad. What should they do first?
• There is leftover cooked rice from lunch service. How should it be handled?
• New tins arrive while older tins of the same product are still on the shelf. What is good practice?

Explain how to keep food safe

A student in the year below is about to work in a kitchen for the first time. Explain how to keep food safe using what this module has covered.

• Explain what cross-contamination is and how to prevent it
• Explain how raw and cooked foods should be stored
• Explain what the danger zone is and the safe fridge and freezer temperatures
• Explain what First In First Out means and why it matters
• Finish by explaining why cooking food thoroughly makes it safe