Welcome Friends! Welcome back to our exploration of cloning the KFC secret recipe
our clone kfc 11 herbs and spices mix getting closer. Our secret KFC spice recipe is still not there yet
but one of the variables that I need to test is the change in the way the
chicken gets into the pressure fryer the breading process working in television
commercials I did a lot of ads for KFC and every time I did an ad the method
changed and when I say the method changed the breading process changed
dipped in milk dipped in water put into a tumbler and tumbled sometimes it was
breaded put on a tray and stuck in the fridge before freezing other times it
was breaded and put right into the fryer and they sort of swung back and forth
and things that went away came back and things that came back again went away
and so it seemed like it was a process that was constantly in flux today we're
gonna do two methods and I want to see if either of these methods affects the
crunch or the crust on the outside of the chicken but more importantly will it
affect the flavor of the chicken the first one we're gonna do is this version
from the 1950s late 1950s early 1960s there is a very famous clip of the
kernel on the Tennessee Ernie Ford Show making chicken and he talks about the
process that he does now the mixture that the chicken was in what is that
milk and milk and egg wash so it first went into a milk wash with eggs and he
says in some other articles that he only used whole milk or skim milk or partly
skim milk and he says all three of those at various points so I'm just gonna go
with our regular 3.25 milk he uses cake flour the spice mix goes into the cake
flour and salt goes into the cake flour it gets mixed up and then fried and I'm
gonna compare that to a version that I'm just going to call mm at some point they
went to dipping the chicken in water instead of a milk and egg wash
still cake flour still has the spice still has the salt but the milk and the
egg are replaced with dried milk and dried egg and those go into the flour
and get mixed in I'm gonna do the 2000s version first so I'm just put chicken in
this basket I've got cold water in this tub and I will do five pieces let's do
five pieces and so it just goes in and you want to get it wet you want to get
the chicken wet you want to get it coated with water it's really not a
whole big deal over the water and shake it and there's a number of times you're
supposed to shake it that to me is just a training mantra to make sure that you
get people doing it the right way across all restaurants and into the flour and
once it's in the flour you have to use your hands that's the best way to make
sure that it's fully coated so you turn it and you turn it and you make sure
that everything gets flour and spice mix all over and then we pull it out and
just knock off any excess okay into the fryer basket
and into the oil give it a couple shakes just to make sure that nothing sticking
on with the lid okay
I hate keep frying that whatever told you that I hate deep-fried okay into the
oven while we fry the next batch so we're gonna call this the 1950's version
which is milk and egg for the initial wash I'm gonna finish that bag and put
in three eggs and see how that goes there's no mention in any of the
literature what the amount of egg to milk was so I think three for this
amount of milk should be fine and if it works it really well and that's
something else I need to tinker with and another five pieces of chicken right
it's not a marinade you're just trying to get the chicken wet so that the
breading sticks okay out of the milk and the egg and into the flour toss
and into the fryer basket
and same as before the oil give it a bit of a shake so nothing sticking tighten
down the lid
okay one last test I'm going to do a hybrid between the two methods so we're
gonna dip it into a milk and egg wash and then we're going to put it into the
2000s breading that contains the egg and the powdered milk and just see what
happens
Oh Glenn it is hot in here it is a lot of pressure frying hey Glenn hey friends
so we've got four four examples what each of them are is written on this
little piece of paper upside down so we can't see okay two of them like I know
what they are just cuz I was here all day working yeah two of them look
distinctly different like these do you kind of like the thing those two look
the same and so what we're looking for is just a taste test of the coating okay
three of them have exactly the same spicing and one of them one of them is
KFC okay so it's it's do anything tastes the same compare and contrast okay gonna
start with this one sure okay they're still nice and hot
that was pretty good no coding yeah taste tastes pretty good
Cody's nice and crunchy um here's the thing about that pressure fryer that
chicken is juicy yeah I like it really does lock everything yeah I leaned over
in fear of dripping yeah um so try this one next sure
that one seems like it's still really hot mm-hmm am I gonna be okay I'm a
little worried fuck Mike someone's very similar yeah very similar in texture
yeah there okay this one looks completely different yeah
I got this spicing more on this one like I can taste
I can taste more flavor from from the coating mm-hmm but it's not I wouldn't
say it's any more or less crunchy or any of those things
no it's okay it's it for you from a coating level it's as crunchy or not as
crunchy all very similar but this one I get I get more flavor coming through
than I did with either of those two and then this one okay I feel like I'm gonna
guess this is the KFC only because it everything else has like big chunky
spicy bits sticking out and they would have a more refined mm-hmm I guess but
let's see how it tastes
No
I think if you threw any of them in front of me I would totally buy into
what you're selling me oh yeah yeah I can tell them apart because they're Stan
I'm I can tell them apart because I'm right here looking at them tasting them
you're tasting them one after the other but if but if even if I close my eyes
and you gave me one I don't think I could tell you which one it was
I really don't and that's good so blindfolded they would all pretty much
taste the same very very similar although one of them to me tastes better
than the others but I think if you were blindfolded if I wouldn't be able to say
oh no no it's very subtle yeah if I was blindfolded and didn't know which one
you were handing me they would all be almost the same but if I had to rank
them oh these two would be lowest on my list there's something about the coating
that masked the flavor of the spicing to me okay
this one would be top of my list okay because I did get more spicy okay and I
know that this one's KFC I kind of guessed that one now I'd have to go you
know to really tell it I'd have to go head to head and go back and back and
forth back and forth between the two just to know the spicing really is the
same yeah mm-hmm we're getting close mm-hmm okay so what keeps nagging let's
let's take a look so the ones that I rated lowest this is the 1950s coating
so dipped in milk and egg wash and then into flour and spicing mm-hmm this is
the hybrid so milk and egg wash and then dipped into the spicing mixture that had
the powdered milk in the powdered egg okay the one that I liked the most is
the one that was only dipped in water and then mixed in and then dipped into
the breading that had the powdered milk in the powdered egg so there's something
about the simplified simplified it's just not it's water versus milk so
there's still milk and there's still egg they're just added in a different way
and you get a different coating the color is the color is closer to the KFC
it is but I think most people would do Philly eight
with you know this is this is a homemade yeah oh maybe fried chicken and then of
course this is the kernels so I'm really surprised I'm actually totally blown
away that I liked the one from mm or the one that we're calling sort of the
contemporary the current version because it's more processed I would say that I
would be happy with any of them yeah I would eat any of them and I think I
think in so in our next in our next video the next iteration I think we're
getting really close with the spicing yes yeah I think you're going on with
the spicing I think there's there's one component that I'm gonna bump up to see
if it brings out the other flavors and that's a little bit more msg I know
they're using a lot of MSG I'm using a little bit of MSG I think if I bump that
up all of the flavors will like adding a little bit more salt a little bit more
salt it'll bloom but I am gonna go with this breading method against all of my
willpower because I thought that it was going to be horrible but it actually
isn't you can't you know when I picked up the egg whites they were 75% off
apparently because no one buys them no one buys them for home use so they were
like 75% off and I thought oh my what am I getting into but so um the next KFC
video won't be as far away as this one was
but it'll be a little ways off cuz it takes a while for testing I will say
though I will add though that although this is your favorite because they're
all really good you could pump up the spicing and knees just by bumping up the
spicy yes and you could make that you know and so if you don't have all of
those things and what you have is milk and egg you this is great yes and so and
that might be a road that I go down because I'm like actually at some point
take out the pressure fryer because always gonna have a pressure fryer and
and I know that frying in a pan or pot is different is a different challenge
and so the spicing and the breading needs to be different to meet that
challenge and that's even farther down the line so thanks for stopping by see
you again soon take care
you