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First time posting here.

I made a risotto Sunday (Arborio rice, butter, onion, white wine, chicken stock, mushrooms, asparagus, peas, turmeric, lemon, parmesan).

It's been refrigerated since cooling completely. It's now Thursday. Am I better to be safe than sorry and toss the last of my leftovers, or should I be okay giving it a good nuke in the microwave before eating the last portion today? There is not any notable off aroma.

Edit// There's no information in that wonderfully long detailed list of food storage/safety pertaining to cooked rice whatsoever. Thanks anyways...

StevenXavier
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    @StevenXavier see the "cooked dishes" section of the possible duplicate question response. Also note that re-heating or "a good nuke" does not make spoiling food safe, nor is aroma a definitive guide. – moscafj Aug 24 '17 at 17:56

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The reason people won't answer these types of questions is that there are too many factors, and are (perhaps errantly?) concerned about liability. Was there any cross contamination? How long was it left out before it cooled? Will it be reheated to cooking temperatures before it's consumed? What's the internal temperature of the refrigerator?

Many foods, such as rice, also have special concerns. Bacillus Cereus can survive cooking, and if the rice was left at room temperature for a number of hours before it was refrigerated, can produce toxins which will make you sick even if the rice is reheated. This has a tendency to hit sushi places particularly hard.

The truth is that there's no binary "safe/unsafe" with food— it's all about reducing risks and making judgment calls. Considering we have the binary choice about whether or not to eat it, that makes questions like yours a bit difficult to answer remotely.

All that said, if it was my rice, I'd make some risotto balls, bread them, fry them, and eat the ever-living-sh** out of that tasty leftover risotto. Should you do the same? Uh... Let me point you to a stackexchange answer-turned-community-wiki-entry on the topic... ;-)

ChefAndy
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  • Thank you! Your simple comment was much more helpful, especially the second paragraph. I ended up tossing it out. I did debate making some arancini out of them and freezing those to bake off when needed. – StevenXavier Aug 24 '17 at 20:36
  • Also, I wasn't aware something packaged and also so dry had this bacteria. I know a lot of restaurants par-cook their risotto and finish to order. Interesting. Thanks again bud! – StevenXavier Aug 24 '17 at 20:37
  • Hi ChefAndy, I see where you are coming from. Nevertheless, it is not that we don't answer this kind of question - we simply use the strict interpretation of food safety, which is "complies with food safety regulations". This means that there is a binary safe/unsafe, and that personal choices are immaterial. We have agreed to not write answers under other interpretations, simply because then it comes up to gut feelings, and our site is ill equiped to determine whose feelings are "righter" than another person's. We would have written an answer to this question too, had it not been a duplicate. – rumtscho Aug 24 '17 at 21:18
  • @rumtscho Just because government food regulations provide a method of making binary decisions regarding food safety does not even remotely mean "there is a binary safe/unsafe." Is steak tartare safe to eat? Rare hamburgers? Nonpasteurized runny eggs? That's why the FDA food code requires restaurants to warn people about eating those things on their menus, even if they're allowed to sell them. The asker clearly appreciated the information I gave in regards to the risk factors— especially with Bacillus Cereus— which was clearly more useful to him than "duplicate. here's a wiki entry." – ChefAndy Aug 24 '17 at 23:13
  • He specifically said that the wiki entry didn't even address the specific concerns that he had. – ChefAndy Aug 24 '17 at 23:15
  • "Safe" has many definitions. The emotional one, as in "it feels safe to eat this" as opposed to "I feel anxious about eating this" is close to binary, or at least has a pronounced bimodal distribution. The probabilistic one, as in "what is the chance of getting sick if I eat this" is very far from binary. The regulatory one I know as a perfect binary, but I am not too versed in the restaurant related regulations, so maybe the items you list are in a third category - but there is certainly a very small number of discrete categories with clearly defined limits. (cont.) – rumtscho Aug 24 '17 at 23:41
  • (cont.) On this site, the first two definitions are off topic, the first would have to be closed as subjective and the second is impossible to calculate even approximately. It is normal that an asker finds a personal reaction to his post more useful than a closure, but writing answers as yours has hidden problems. We cannot rewrite the most basic facts of food safety such as "any cooked food has bacteria" every time a new asker comes, nor contain them all in a single post. Giving partial information (the way you did) makes the OP feel better informed, but is misleading. – rumtscho Aug 24 '17 at 23:46
  • In the end, I do think that we are failing at making askers understand what our answers mean, what their questions mean, and what food safety is about. Our approach is flawed. But the past has shown that the approach in your answer does not solve the problem, and in addition it also hurts our usual guidelines of not getting into wars of opinion. So we simply live with trying to inform the askers that what we are answering are the guidelines, and not their hopes of "these people will tell me if I'll get sick". – rumtscho Aug 24 '17 at 23:49
  • My summation: 1) it's complicated— there are many confounding variables, 2) rice is of particular concern, 3) there's never a guarantee that it's safe, and 4) if I had cooked it knowing what I'd know, I'd probably take the risk. Especially since he stated that the provided material didn't answer the question, I'm even more confident that this wasn't worth closing as a dupe. Hey, it's your downvote button, but I completely disagree. As an aside, it might not be your intent, but I find your tone to be off-puttingly patronizing. – ChefAndy Aug 25 '17 at 03:42