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Patting dry with paper towels is really wasteful. I would like to pat dry meat with something reusable like a kitchen towel, yet I fear some of the bacteria will remain on it and make it contaminated.
Is there a substitute for paper towels?
Also, do not confuse this question with: Do you use paper or clothe towel
This is about the safety of using a reusable drying material, not it's culinary efficacy.
There are only four ways that I know of other than towels (paper or otherwise) to dry meat:
Most people avoid the heat approach, as you'll start to cook it once it's hot enough to be safe for long-term storage of meat. Some recipes may start in a low oven to dry the surface, then remove it, let the oven pre-heat to a higher temperature, then finish cooking. (as it's difficult to give recipes that know how quickly your oven heats up).
For momentum, you basically have to flick the meat such that the water gets flung off. Which is prone to lots of problems (letting go of the meat, plus the spraying of contaminated liquid everywhere). You could use a salad spinner, but if you did, I'd recommend keeping a separate one for meats, as you don't want to risk contaminating other ingredients that would be eaten raw.
For the airflow, you can set it under a low speed fan ... avoiding high speeds so you don't end up aerosolizing the moisture and flinging it through the kitchen.
Or you can place the food in a ventilated container and leave it in your fridge overnight ... possibly with a battery powered fan in the fridge to improve airflow.
As all of these ideas have drawbacks (food safety, time, etc.), most people just accept the waste of using paper towels. There are a few times when one of the others might be used (food dehydrating, trying to get a glaze to set up (eg, peking duck), dry brining, etc.), but they're relatively rare.
if you use a kitchen towel to pat-dry meat, then you have to discard (wash) it after a single usage, not really practical if it is not wash-day at your house. or if you decide to wash it (more or less) on its own, then it is a waste of water/detergent/energy.
If it is about safety, use paper towels; dry the meat, trash it.
It it convenient cheap, safe, (more) ecological if made with recycled paper.
Instead of using "white" paper towels, you could use brown paper rolls, which are cheaper and do the same work.
Although I haven't tried it, I think using a muslin to pat the meat dry would be a good solution. It's a nice, clean material, with little to no loss of fibers ("hairs", "fluff", don't know what term to use exactly) than a kitchen towel, and I imagine it would still get the job done.
To clean it, you would have to put it in boiling water, and (perhaps?) add a drop of bleach to it, so it's sterilized again. A good quality muslin will has plenty of life in it, and take quite a lot of abuse (including cooking, and using it as a wringer for squeezing out fluids).
I would say you have two options:
1. Buy cheap paper towels made of recycled material, and then recycle those after they've been used.
2. Plan ahead. Put an open box of baking soda in your fridge and leave it there. Remove the meat from its wrapping at least an hour to an hour and a half before you plan to put it in the pan. Place the meat on a wire rack in your fridge and let the cold, dry air remove moisture from the surface of the meat. Et voila! Bone-dry meat avec no paper towels.
Brown Paper lunch bags will dry your meat. Crumple it first to soften. Even better, place the chicken in the bags and press lightly.
