I was able to bake frozen chicken for the longest time in my oven (~6 months). However, recently the fire alarms in my apartment started going off. So I noticed it was a little dirty and cleaned it out with Easy Off, and cooked non-frozen chicken and all seemed to work out fine. Tonight however I tried to cook 4 frozen chicken thighs (1.75lbs) in a glassware container by themselves and put very little PAM spray in the bottom of it and placed a cookie sheet on top... the alarms went off again. What am I doing wrong? On the package for the chicken it says to bake at 350F and I've tacked on 50% of the cooking time since it's frozen. But the alarms went off after only ~30mins. If anyone could point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it! Thanks!
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3Is this the only think that you've used your oven for since you started having problems? (is it the oven, or the food in the oven). I've never tried cooking chicken from frozen; I'd have suspected that you'd want to cook at a lower temperature to reduce the chance of overcooking the outside before the inside was done.– JoeCommented Nov 3, 2014 at 1:21
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1 Answer
If I understand you correctly, you're putting frozen chicken thighs in a glassware dish that's been sprayed with Pam and then putting that into a 350F oven.
Since the chicken will take quite a while to thaw and begin emitting juices that will cool the dish, that dish is going to rise to 350F fairly quickly. 350F is hot enough to begin smoking with many oils. Not sure about Pam's smoke point, but I would bet that if you looked in the oven when the smoke alarm is going off, you'll see smoke rising from the pan itself, not the chicken or the oven.
Solution: Thaw the chicken before cooking or apply oil to the chicken but not the pan.
answered Nov 3, 2014 at 5:01
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Thanks, I'll try this. I was thinking perhaps the oven was getting hotter than 350F as I didn't think 350 would hit the smoke point, but now I know otherwise!– moopastaCommented Nov 3, 2014 at 19:58
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@moopasta Well, that could be part of it. I checked and Pam is made from canola oil, which has a smoke point of 400F, so you might want to get an oven thermometer and check your oven. The built-in thermometers on stoves are often significantly off. Commented Nov 3, 2014 at 20:02
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Thanks I ordered an oven thermometer and I'm going to test that out tomorrow afternoon once it comes in. We will see what that shows...– moopastaCommented Nov 3, 2014 at 20:18
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Well that was it I set the oven to 350F and it was climbing up past 525F when i check and turned it off. Thanks again for all the help!– moopastaCommented Nov 8, 2014 at 19:27
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3@moopasta Wow, that's one seriously busted thermostat. Commented Nov 8, 2014 at 20:30