Chicken – Texture problem with marinated chicken

This would be a bad idea.

Chicken should be cooked 1-2 days after refrigeration according to the USDA and other food safety agencies, and will tend to get noticeably slimy and pungent after 3-4 days in my experience. 5 days is really pushing it.

I understand the rationale for the question - lemon juice can kill the surface bacteria - but that's just the problem, salmonella bacteria don't only exist on the surface of chicken, they're crawling around the interior as well.

In order for this to be considered safe, you would need to be absolutely sure of all the following:

• The entire marinade had a pH of significantly less than 4. Lemon juice is considered to have a base pH of 2-3, but that is fresh lemon juice and undiluted. Unless you actually used a pH tester, you cannot be 100% positive of this.

• The marinade completely penetrated every part of the chicken that may have been contaminated. This is literally impossible for you to measure.

• The chicken itself was relatively fresh before it went into the marinade - unless you got it farm-fresh, you don't know this for a fact, so even if the marinade completely penetrated the chicken, the interior bacteria may have already left behind some nasty protein toxins (which the marinade can't kill because they aren't alive).

If you had said 3 days, maybe 4, I would say, practically, that you'd probably be OK. But any more than that and you're playing with fire.

As the old chef's saying goes: When in doubt, throw it out.

If you are intent on eating it anyway then please, at least be responsible and don't serve it to any guests.

If you cook it immediately on arriving, an hour is a safe period. Remember the chicken will take a little time to heat up. Usually 2 hours is the limit for meat at room temperature.

On the other hand, there's no harm in playing it safe, with both spillage and spoilage. I'd suggest you put the brine and chicken in a zip-seal bag, then put ANOTHER bag around that to protect against leaks, then throw the whole thing in a larger tupperware container with ice packed around it.

This way you're not going to worry about leaks, and if you get stuck in traffic for longer than expected, the chicken will still be fine to cook and eat.