In a kitchen that has only a flat top to cook with, is it safe to cook raw chicken on it and at the same time heat a quesadillas on the same surface but on opposite side of the flat top?
Chicken – Cooking raw chicken beside heating quesadillas
chickenfood-safetyraw
Related Solutions
You can have raw chicken in restaurants in Japan - it's delicious. Depending on where you live there may be better or worse food safety standards, but there is nothing poisonous about raw chicken itself.
By the way, sushi is a dish with vinegary rice. The raw-meat dish is Sashimi. A picture of chicken sashimi:
You will note that in this photo the chicken is actually not raw but quite rare. The exterior of the chicken flesh is actually seared and cooked through several millimeters.
In general, it is not a good idea to use the same surface for poultry and other foods; you would have to assume that cross-contamination has happened.
In this specific case, since you mention roasting, assuming it is a whole muscle cut, even if contaminated, the pathogens will not quickly penetrate to the interior—they will remain on the surface. Don't cut slits in the meat (such as for inserting garlic, or the cross-hatching on a pork roast) which would allow penetration deeper into the roast.
Assuming you cook it so that the exterior reaches at least 155°F/68.5°C, then your roast should be fine. Just make sure it is well browned which is a sure sign that the surface temperature has (well) exceeded 155 F.
Best Answer
Of course you can. The question is whether it is a good idea or not in terms of food safety.
What you don't want to have happen is for raw chicken juices to splatter onto the quesadilla, especially after it has been flipped so that the side where the juices splatter will not be cooked again.
In actual practice, you have to assess the risks:
In practice, unless you are serving at-risk populations like the immune-compromised, elderly, or very young children, the risk is probably quite low as long as the foods are far enough apart that the juice is not flowing from the chicken to the quesadilla.
In a professional food service environment, you probably should not do this; at home, you must assess your own tolerance for risk.