1970's Cooking process - An Interesting Read.

[ThePieMan]

Nov 15, 2020 19:03:43 GMT btb said:

I thank Helen for the picture that she supplied on this question (e.g. dumping oil and fried chicken).  It is interesting, but not conclusive.  Many cannot believe that the cooking process included one picking up a relatively heavy container of hot fried chicken and hot, hot oil and dumping the contents into some sieve or whatever.  The idea seems to defy common sense.  But its clear that modern, super duper square pressure fryers (and the "older" circular ones), involve no "dumping of chicken or oil."

We've often had some "old timers" come forth herein and describe the pressure chicken frying process in the "early days" of the Colonel's finest times. Anyone out there that can tell us how/when the pressure cooked chicken was taken or extracted from the pressure fryers after its cooking in such early times?  We know that it is not maybe done that way today, but how was it done "back in the day?"

It seems you missed reading the first post in this thread?

kfc11.proboards.com/post/1902 - points 9 and 18, for your reference...

[btb]

Oct 29, 2020 18:52:01 GMT ThePieMan said:

Oct 29, 2020 18:47:37 GMT btb said:

This description here and from others has always confused me.  How did the kitchen crew lift the heavy, hot pot filled with oil/lard and chicken and dump it into a draining rack.  I've never seen pictures of that kind of draining rack.  I thought the chicken was just picked out of the container.

Today with the sophisticated machines, the chicken is fried on a rack and is lifted out of the machine when done the racks that they were cooked on goes straight into the steaming/warming container.  The oil remains in the pressure frying machine.

Yes, isn't that an interesting observation? Glad you pointed it out. Perhaps, deepfried101 in all his wisdom, can clarify this for us.I certainly haven't seen pictures of such a rack.

TPM:  I thought that you were likewise curious about this question of picking up pots heavily laden with fried chicken and hot oil and dumping them somehow.  Must of required muscle bound employees, eh?  Points #9 and #18 don't help one at all to understand this difficult and dangerous assignment.  Am I wrong?  I've seen no satisfactory proof of this yet and that's why I've asked anyone out there with experience in the early days to let us know.

[ThePieMan]

The Mirromatic pressure cookers were not gigantic, but what I gather were big enough for 2 head of chicken, 1950's chicken. The pots were made of Aluminium.

The amount of oil in the pots, well... should never have exceeded 2/3rds the volume of the pot "With" the chicken in it, but looking at old pictures of the The Colonel, we see that they were pretty much foaming full.

Either way, the total weight would still be quite manageable, it must have been as we've not seen or heard of any OH&S "horror stories from the KFC kitchens of old - I'm sure there must have been some.

We do know this, KFC was very procedure oriented, and there was a "deemed safe way to handle the pots.

I would like to see a better picture of the draining tray, because, I believe, that with the need to get the chicken out of the hot oil quickly and safely, there had to splash guards, a certain grating size not to impede the oil but also to catch all the chicken, and something more than a cloth apron for the pot cook to wear. However, all this is conjecture on my part.

[btb]

Nov 17, 2020 9:09:52 GMT ThePieMan said:

The amount of oil in the pots, well... should never have exceeded 2/3rds the volume of the pot "With" the chicken in it, but looking at old pictures of the The Colonel, we see that they were pretty much foaming full.

Either way, the total weight would still be quite manageable (??) , it must have been as we've not seen or heard of any OH&S "horror stories from the KFC kitchens of old - I'm sure there must have been some.

Eh?  I betcha there were.  Such would still have been a difficult work task for some "kid" to handle.  And issues of liability to those teenagers would, at least in the U.S., be handled under limited liability, workers' compensation laws.  And to some extent, even worse elsewhere in the world.  Horror stories with this would be hard to get a free press to cover on average.  All rarely hear about workers compensation cases.  On this question of dumping of full and hot, hot pots of previous pressure fried KFC chicken, count me as . . . 
                                                             

                                                                                                -- . . . a doubting Thomas!

[Helen]

In the foreground we can see a large vat of oil being filled. You will also notice there is metal tubing to siphon oil from the tipped pressure cookers nearby. Is is being filtered? I think it is. Is the oil hot? We can't tell.

[kgp]

It's only logical that they did filter the oil to get more life out of it. It saves money. This would only be done after cooking many batches of chicken and when the oil cooled down some. For those that think they are dumping chicken with the hot oil after each batch of chicken cooked think about the recover time to heat that oil back up for cooking chicken again. It would be very wasteful and time consuming to do all that. Not to mention the DANGER. Curious question: Why is the guy on the right weighing the biscuit or rolls on a scale? Are they not sold by the count? He doesn't want to count them but weigh them instead? How easy would it be to count 12 of them or whatever number they bag them up?

[dprovo]

Thanks for the picture helen, I wish I was there.

Dustin

[ThePieMan]

From the comments section of G&F's last KFC video, we have a former, late 1970's KFC Cook relate their recollections of the process. It's interesting for comparing and contrasting with the first post in this thread.

Al Gonzales wrote> 2 months ago
Here's my recollections as someone who cooked KFC chicken for 3 summers circa 1976 to 1978. My uncle was a manager of a chain restaurant called Geno's in Jersey City, NJ...Geno's had apparently obtained a license from KFC to sell their chicken. Geno's is no longer in business. This is how I was taught to make the chicken.
1. The chicken arrived in 40 pound boxes in a somewhat frozen state. It was stored in a freezer upon delivery and some would then be moved to another cool room to defrost.
2. A bag of powdered eggwash would be mixed in a large bowl with room temperature water and set aside.
3. A bag quite like the one in the video which contained the premixed spices would be emptied into another bowl and set aside.
4. A large block of white colored shortening similar to Crisco would be carved up by hand and placed individually into a row of six 22 quart commercial heavy duty pressure cookers, each with their own commercial burners, and heated to 400 degrees F. uncovered.
5. While the shortening was heating, the chicken pieces would be dipped in the eggwash and then into the white spice mixture and coated thoroughly. You could see the black flecks of spices throughout the spice mixture and in the finished product.
6. The chicken would be placed into each of the pressure cookers at 400 F and stirred constantly for 1 minute. This allowed the chicken to brown at atmospheric pressure. They had a color chart that would tell you what color it should be. Each pot was to contain a certain amount of breasts, thighs, wings and a rather delicious piece called a keel if memory serves. I believe the amount was 12 pieces per pot.
7. After 1 minute of stirring, the lids of the pressure cookers would be placed on and the heat would be lowered. This allowed for the chicken to cook internally. This step called for 8 minutes of additional cooking time at low heat.
8. After 8 minutes, the relief valves of the pressure cookers would be opened and after releasing the pressure safely, the lids of the cookers would be removed and the chicken would be dumped along with shortening thru a metal screen into a bin. The shortening would be recycled for the next batch.
9. The chicken would be removed and placed into a warming oven that kept it around 140 degrees I believe. This kept it moist and juicy. After a certain amount of time if the chicken did not sell it was supposed to be destroyed as it tended to get dry.
Additionally, around 1977, KFC came out with their extra crispy option which was very popular amongst some folks. I was not a fan and much preferred the original recipe. I felt that the extra crispy stuff lost some of the flavor in the process. Basically, they would recoat the original recipe chicken in a different mixture and flash cook it to puff up the coating. Hope this helps some of you. I'm amazed that I can recall so many of the details after all these years...I'm 63 and was a teenager cooking KFC back then...I still have a few hot shortening splash burns on the inside of my forearms to remind me.

A couple of points here, the breading was pre-mixed; times and temperatures; dumping the oil.

I am not sure, but apart from seeing a video with a grainy view of the colour chart in it, I don't recall EVER seeing a good quality photo of that, "ye olde but goodie," Colour Chart. Does anyone have it?

[cascader]

I have no insight as to how it was done but do note that there is what appears to be a a pump along the back wall, with lines running to each pot station as was mentioned above.. I’d suggest that played a role in refilling with residually hot oil. Given bottom heating without a collector, you’d want to regularly remove cracklings for gravy to keep them form being burnt.

Also regarding the paper bags and scale in the background - I wonder if these are actually spice bags being portioned out.

[cascader]

On closer look, maybe chicken?

And it sure looks like an oil stream running out of the near side of the tray.

[cascader]

Attached to this listing are some pics of the listed thermometer in use. It appears to be similar to the one on the table the TEF show.

Note the key temperatures of 400 and 250 (undoubtedly specific to a pot size, amount of oil, qty of chicken).

www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Kentucky-Fried-Chicken-Restaurant-Thermometer-Colonel-Sanders-Logo-KFC-/254737072443

[ThePieMan]

May 13, 2021 3:59:48 GMT cascader said:

On closer look, maybe chicken?

And it sure looks like an oil stream running out of the near side of the tray.

Yes. 'And the man dumping the pot has the long handle upwards and a long kitchen utensil in his other hand to help support the pot which he is pouring towards himself  
I guess he must have already dumped the chook so the woman could step in and move the peices, whilst he's scraping out the pot - I guess?

[cascader]

There is some discussion of pumping the filtered fat around in this CHS patent.
patents.google.com/patent/US3156177A/en?inventor=Sanders+Harland

[hotdog]

you dip the chicken out with a spider dump all but little oil in a fryer. This is the new way of dumping the chicken it drained into a fryer was fillterd into a pump back into pots you have 10 lb oil 5 lb chicken in the pots

[Willie Pagan]

This was a fantastic read... I was dancing right there with ya..!!!