Purpose of potassium in a KFC CopyCat marinade recipe?

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You will never duplicate KFC (why!!) because they pressure fry the chicken. You can put the copycat spices, etc. on it (and please stop obsessing about the potassium typo) and fry it, BUT it will never taste the same.
 
Candocook said:
You will never duplicate KFC (why!!) because they pressure fry the chicken. You can put the copycat spices, etc. on it (and please stop obsessing about the potassium typo) and fry it, BUT it will never taste the same.


hi candocook,

i wasn't obsessing about the potassium just curious. what do you mean it's a typo. u mean it's a typing mistake?

anyway do you think the chicken will taste like kfc if i bought a pressure cooker to cook it in?
 
1) You recipe does not call for "potassium." That's a typo. They left off the "chloride." Please see discussion above.

2) You cannot fry in a regular pressure cooker. If you are really that set on this experiment, make 100% sure you buy a pressure fryer otherwise you could really hurt yourself.
 
jennyema said:
1) You recipe does not call for "potassium." That's a typo. They left off the "chloride." Please see discussion above.

2) You cannot fry in a regular pressure cooker. If you are really that set on this experiment, make 100% sure you buy a pressure fryer otherwise you could really hurt yourself.


thanks for the advice jennyema,

i don' know much about pressure cookers. i think maybe i will just petition the local council to let us have a kfc in our towm :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
 
That "marinade" will not make the chicken soaked in it taste anything like KFC, especially if you just soak it and fry it! It's a brine/cure - it's got no "flavorings" in it.

That marinade would be at best only an overnight brine/cure ... the real flavor will come from the "11 secret herbs and spices" in the "breading" - and in the "pressure frying".

Please - do NOT try to use a pressure "cooker" to pressure "fry" - unless you have a death wish!!! They are not readily interchangeable ... well, you can pressure cook in a pressure fryer but you can't pressure fry in a pressure cooker.

I LOVE KFC original chicken ... but I only splurge on a bucket once every 3-6 months.

You might find our discussion on "Saltpeter" of some interest ... since it's really along the same lines.
 
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thanks for the advice michael. i was gonna go buy a pressure cooker to fry those chicken as they're quite cheap but after reading advice from dc members, found out it was a big no no. and a pressure fryer cost an arm and a leg someone said.

so i have given up on making kfc chicken at home and consoling myself with the fact that kfc chicken is really not good for you anyway with the amount of msg in the recipe.


perhaps this summer hubby and i will go on a shopping trip in order to go to our closest kfc ( 4 hours away)
 
K salts also tend to be much less hygroscopic than Na salts also, so there may be practical reasons (storage transport etc...) that it`s used.

OR...... maybe he just wanted to be different and make life difficult for Recipe Copiers???
 
This has been an interesting topic to research ... and really makes me wish I had paid more attention to the documentary they did on the history of "Colonel" Harland Sanders and the founding of KFC - they showed film of him and his original pressure fryers.

The "original" Original KFC was cooked in a cast iron skillet ... because it was less greasy than deep frying .... but to decrease cooking time and increase output (and thus profit), he started playing around with pressure fryers which could cook more chicken in a shorter time. The original ones the he used were on-the-stovetop types. And, apparently the method he used of marinating and then breading and frying is known as "Broasting" ... you really want to take the time to read this article.

The two main commercial pressure fryers appear to be the Broaster and the Henny Penny ... and both will set you back a pretty penny when new ... and even used they are upwards of $2,500 US (for a Broaster currently on eBay - Broaster only sell new to restaurants so I couldn't find a price for them ... although I did find a price for a Henny Penny, starting at about $9,000 US) ... and you have to have commercial wiring to handle them - your average home wiring will not handle it. Obviously, these are both overkill for the home cook.

This site is also a must read: What You Need to Know about Pressure Frying (and don't forget to read the other associated topics on that page, too!!) The only two pressure fryers she mentions are both hard to find.

One option that might be worth exploring is an All American Pressure Cooker - you'll just have to email them and talk to them about if it can be used as a pressure fryer. It certainly "seems" to fit the bill ... no rubber gasket, dual vent ports, multiple locking clamps. They don't advertise their cookers as "fryers" - you'll just have to ask them about it.

So, basically, the modern day "drive thru" KFC secret is based on marinating overnight (to help retain moisture like a brine will), then the breading with "11 secret herbs and spices" (for flavor), and cooking in a pressure fryer (to retain moisture and decrease greasyness).

Whew ... now this has been fun!
 
interesting article on colonel sanders michael. didn't realize he originally used an iron skillet to fry his chicken. i wonder how long it took him to fry his chicken in the skillet.

when i did mine in a wok it took me a good 30-40 minutes to fry them on medium heat. i was really surprised as i didn't think it took that long to deep fry chicken especially when it has been brined overnight as well.
 
g23 said:
interesting article on colonel sanders michael. didn't realize he originally used an iron skillet to fry his chicken. i wonder how long it took him to fry his chicken in the skillet.

when i did mine in a wok it took me a good 30-40 minutes to fry them on medium heat. i was really surprised as i didn't think it took that long to deep fry chicken especially when it has been brined overnight as well.

Brining has no effect on cooking time. It takes 15 minutes per side to fry chicken under usual circumstances--as I have been doing for a number of years.
And the Colonel didn't brine his chicken either.
 
The brining/marniating has "nothing" to do with how long it takes the chicken to cook ... it only has to do with "moistness". The temperature of your oil, and if you are over crowding the pan, has more to do with cooking time than anything.

Frying chicken in a pressure fryer takes about 8-9 minutes (after it reaches temp and pressure) - although I remember going to a KFC and they told me it would be about 30-mins ... so I wonder about how long it really takes. Actually, they were always out of original KFC and it was always going to take 30 minutes - so maybe the KFC in Golden, Colorado isn't a good example? :(

I was curious - so after I read your last post I made a trip to my two fave deep-fry chicken places and asked them ... Church's and Edmondson's - they deep fry "dark meat" pieces for about 15-mins, white for about 12. Of course I now have enough fried chicken to last me for a couple of days. :ermm:

When Mom, Grandma, or my aunts "skillet fried" chicken ... it seems it took about 30-40 minutes or so per batch. I don't think I've ever timed it - but I would guess that is about how long it takes me, too.

Candocook brought up a good point about the brining ... so after reading it I called and had a nice chat with a very nice lady who is the manager of a KFC near me. She was obviously doing her best not to laugh out loud about the ton of KFC myths ... but, she did confirm that KFC chicken is NOT marinated before cooking. So ... that kind of makes this debate about Potassium in the marinade for original KFC kind of moot?
 
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:) Just my humble opinion but whats the big deal with KFC?I love fried chicken but the KFC has always been way too salty and greasy for me and I do like a fair amount of salt.
Whats wrong with just marinating in buttermilk and using a good breading and frying up the old fashioned way?I can not fry well in a skillet on the the stove but the regular electric pan fryer pan works great since you can set the temp and is practically idiot proof.
 
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YT2095 said:
also the addition of Elemental Potassium (the metal itself) would preclude the need to Cook the chicken entirely :)

there would be a Lovely Lilac colored Flash, a sound to wake the dead, and although de-feathered and cut up, this Chicken would still Fly :)

Luvs: yeah Hypo-kallemia(sp) if quite dangerous, glad yer Ok now though :)

I'm glad someone remembers their chemistry lessons.:mrgreen:

I remember watching reactive metals put together with water, air, or other substances. Pottasium, lithium, sodium, phosphorous, they all react quite violently if given half a chance. And oxygen, pure oxygen that is, don't let it come into contact with any petroleum substances. Most people just don't realize, or haven't been taught about the explosive properties of metals. Even aluminum, when made into a superfine dust, becomes highly explosive when exposed to air and the tiniest spar, as does iron. And then we could go into the eutechtic salts.

It's funny how wehn you combine some substances, such as sodium and chloride, the compound is enherently stable. Yet when you mix other substance that are harmless and vary stable by themselves, they become very unstable. Of course I thinking about such compounds as nitro-glycerine (even though nitric acid is reactive), and TNT.

I'ts all about covalent bonds if I remember by grade-school chemistry (40 years back so my memory may be flawed a bit here).

Here's and interesting tidbit. When oxygen is compressed into a solid state, it develops the characteristics of metal. I think that's incredible. That's almost as cools as buckyballs and carbon nano-tubes.

Who says I can't be a nerd when I want to be?:ROFLMAO:
Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
Candocook said:
Brining has no effect on cooking time. It takes 15 minutes per side to fry chicken under usual circumstances--as I have been doing for a number of years.
And the Colonel didn't brine his chicken either.

i think brining does have effect on cooking time or at least every site i go to on brinning says it does as brining increases the water content in the meat and because water is a good conductor of heat it takes less time to cook a brined meat
 
I actually worked at KFC.

It was my first job and it was interesting.

We did not marinate chicken first. We got bags of the KFC seasoned flour and coated it in that. One dip. Then it was put on trays and into a pressure fryer that resembled a refrigerator. It cooked many trays at a time. Then the trays were wheeled into large warming bins.

Xtra Crispy was made in a regular fryer.

I made potatoes from a mix in a huge industrial mixer and gravy from a mix and drippings. I also made many of the salads.

My friend had all of her bright red nail polish come off when she was mixing the cole salw ... but that was better than one of the "older" ladies (she was probably 30) who cut off her finger in the cabbage slicer.

The guys who were not the world's brightest lights used to bread their hands up with Xtra Crispy batter and stick them into the fryer to see who could last the longest. Till one basically fried his hand off. Then they stopped.

After a year I moved up in the world to McDonalds.:chef:
 
Michael in FtW said:
Candocook brought up a good point about the brining ... so after reading it I called and had a nice chat with a very nice lady who is the manager of a KFC near me. She was obviously doing her best not to laugh out loud about the ton of KFC myths ... but, she did confirm that KFC chicken is NOT marinated before cooking. So ... that kind of makes this debate about Potassium in the marinade for original KFC kind of moot?

kfc chicken is not marinated or brined? i really thought they marinated it or did something to it at least that's what my little recipe booklet on kfc said. it said the chicken were marinated for 24 hours. i wonder then how they get the flavor to penetrate so thoroughly. must be the "12 spices thing" as well as the pressure fryer.

thanks for all these little interesting tidbites michael. you have done much to inform but i do not want you to tell me how much you've enjoyed your kfc chicken!:mrgreen:

all these new kfc chicken ads with honey barbecue sauce over here in the uk is driving both me and my husband nuts. everytime it comes on we just sit there and drool. so sad....lol
 
jennyema said:
:rolleyes:
The guys who were not the world's brightest lights used to bread their hands up with Xtra Crispy batter and stick them into the fryer to see who could last the longest. Till one basically fried his hand off. Then they stopped.

After a year I moved up in the world to McDonalds.:chef:

you're kidding right about the person frying his hand off. are there people stupid enough to do that?
 
It was not boiling oil, but when we were kids we used to melt wax, When we had a big pot of liquid wax we would plunge our hand into it and then immediately plunge it into cold water. Then back into the wax and then into water. We would go back and forth like this until it built up nice and thick. Only the first two or three plunges hurt. After that your hand was protected from the wax. I am sure the breading did the same sort of thing for those kids hads. Still a pretty stupid thing to do though!
 
Michael, we used to love Church's. Have only a couple left in our city--and unfortunately, aren't the cleanest!!
 
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