A one hour interuption in cooking chicken, will it be safe to eat?

Question

I half boiled chicken legs and thighs, put them in my Crock Pot with BBQ sauce, put the slow cooker on high, but forgot to plug it in. I discovered my mistake an hour later. So I quickly put them in the oven to finish cooking. They were still steamy hot when I took them out of the crock pot, but I didn't take their temperature. Will they be safe to eat?

Answer 1

Generally the USDA recommends that if food has been in the "danger zone" (between 41 and 140°F) for two hours, it is unsafe to eat. Here's the guide. If the food is in the upper end of the "danger zone" the safe time shortens to an hour.

So, your chicken is right on the cusp of being considered unsafe to eat. If the chicken was colder than 140° when you put it in the crock pot, I wouldn't want to risk it. That said, if the surface was boiling hot when it was put in, it probably wouldn't have spent that full hour in the "danger zone" and still be ok.