Post by justinalias on May 15, 2024 1:53:14 GMT
Hello, I'm new here and would like to share a couple ideas regarding breading flour for Original Recipe KFC.
Of course what we're all striving for is a crust identical to what you get from the chain. I've tried lots of different types of flour over the years as well as different combinations of types of flour and I have come to the conclusion that the cake / pastry flour works best in terms of appearance and texture. But it's not just the flour that counts, there's a couple things that can be added to enhance the crust, and these additional things are listed in the ingredients for OR breaded chicken. I might add I haven't seen mention of these ingredients anywhere else, but perhaps someone has mentioned them on this forum.
Besides, the flour, salt, spices, and powdered milk, the powdered egg white has additional ingredients mentioned in brackets: "dried egg white (egg white, baker's yeast, citric acid)". Again, these additional ingredients are listed in the Yum! Brands list of ingredients for Original Recipe chicken in Canada. The dried egg white was nothing new but the baker's yeast and citric acid were.
Before I was able to obtain dried egg white, I used liquid egg white in a bowl (1/4 to 1/3 of a cup) and added 1/8 tsp baker's yeast AKA instant yeast, and just under 1/8 tsp citric acid. The yeast would act as a leavening agent and the citric acid would accelerate the process and help to produce more bubbles, which it did. I can't remember if I'd added baking powder to the egg white, I probably did, because baking powder and citric acid go hand in hand together, and the yeast was coming along for the ride just for the fun of it. I also added a tsp of whole milk powder. Years ago I tried adding a tsp of skim milk powder to my liquid egg (whole egg at that time) and the chicken came out burnt in appearance and the seasonings were destroyed. I haven't used skim milk since for that reason but the whole milk seems to work fine, and it probably helps to add color to the finished product. Maybe I'll try the skim milk powder again just to see. For this batch I used plain cake / pastry flour with no leavening agents already added. The result was interesting... the pressure-fried coating had good texture and a soft but chewy bite, and there were these small pockets of flavor in the chicken skin where the seasoned flour had been trapped and hadn't fried and there was a lot of umami packed into those. When I hit one of those umami pockets I'd sit there and very slowly chew, savoring the savory spike of flavor for almost up to a minute.
In my next batch when I finally did manage to get powdered egg white, I mixed everything up as a seasoned flour, dunked the chicken in cold water, breaded, pressure-fried, and this time the chicken coating had the same pockets of yummy uncooked sludge, but the texture was weird and unappealing to be honest due to the inclusion of the baker's yeast, so I decided to try something different. In my next batch, I used one cup of self-rising cake / pastry flour that already had baking powder and salt pre-added to it and this time I left out the instant yeast and added only the citric acid (1/16 tsp). I also added dried egg white (1.5 tsp) and whole milk powder (1 tsp). The result was as good if not better than what I had made with the liquid egg white, and their were no weird yeast pockets, but there were still some tasty flour pockets that also had a good umami kick. The appearance, texture, and chew of the skin very closely resembled what you'd get at today's chains. However, sodium bicarbonate is not listed in the ingredients for the Original Recipe yet it's used for the extra crispy / spicy version.
One more thing I want to add about achieving the same texture and appearance of the OR fried skin is that I let my raw chicken soak for a few minutes in very cold water before draining it by hand and then throwing multiple pieces into my blow of seasoned flour and rolling the pieces around all sloppily and all over the bowl until I make a big mess in my sink and then I knock each piece against the edge of the bowl, visually check it, and then toss it onto a metal rack to sit for no more than 3 minutes before all the pieces go into a low-budget pressure cooker. Rolling the pieces around in the seasoned flour like that seems to give the skin that twisted raggedy texture after it's been fried. I used to coat one piece at a time but the pieces always came out boring, not anymore.
I hope this post helps.
Of course what we're all striving for is a crust identical to what you get from the chain. I've tried lots of different types of flour over the years as well as different combinations of types of flour and I have come to the conclusion that the cake / pastry flour works best in terms of appearance and texture. But it's not just the flour that counts, there's a couple things that can be added to enhance the crust, and these additional things are listed in the ingredients for OR breaded chicken. I might add I haven't seen mention of these ingredients anywhere else, but perhaps someone has mentioned them on this forum.
Besides, the flour, salt, spices, and powdered milk, the powdered egg white has additional ingredients mentioned in brackets: "dried egg white (egg white, baker's yeast, citric acid)". Again, these additional ingredients are listed in the Yum! Brands list of ingredients for Original Recipe chicken in Canada. The dried egg white was nothing new but the baker's yeast and citric acid were.
Before I was able to obtain dried egg white, I used liquid egg white in a bowl (1/4 to 1/3 of a cup) and added 1/8 tsp baker's yeast AKA instant yeast, and just under 1/8 tsp citric acid. The yeast would act as a leavening agent and the citric acid would accelerate the process and help to produce more bubbles, which it did. I can't remember if I'd added baking powder to the egg white, I probably did, because baking powder and citric acid go hand in hand together, and the yeast was coming along for the ride just for the fun of it. I also added a tsp of whole milk powder. Years ago I tried adding a tsp of skim milk powder to my liquid egg (whole egg at that time) and the chicken came out burnt in appearance and the seasonings were destroyed. I haven't used skim milk since for that reason but the whole milk seems to work fine, and it probably helps to add color to the finished product. Maybe I'll try the skim milk powder again just to see. For this batch I used plain cake / pastry flour with no leavening agents already added. The result was interesting... the pressure-fried coating had good texture and a soft but chewy bite, and there were these small pockets of flavor in the chicken skin where the seasoned flour had been trapped and hadn't fried and there was a lot of umami packed into those. When I hit one of those umami pockets I'd sit there and very slowly chew, savoring the savory spike of flavor for almost up to a minute.
In my next batch when I finally did manage to get powdered egg white, I mixed everything up as a seasoned flour, dunked the chicken in cold water, breaded, pressure-fried, and this time the chicken coating had the same pockets of yummy uncooked sludge, but the texture was weird and unappealing to be honest due to the inclusion of the baker's yeast, so I decided to try something different. In my next batch, I used one cup of self-rising cake / pastry flour that already had baking powder and salt pre-added to it and this time I left out the instant yeast and added only the citric acid (1/16 tsp). I also added dried egg white (1.5 tsp) and whole milk powder (1 tsp). The result was as good if not better than what I had made with the liquid egg white, and their were no weird yeast pockets, but there were still some tasty flour pockets that also had a good umami kick. The appearance, texture, and chew of the skin very closely resembled what you'd get at today's chains. However, sodium bicarbonate is not listed in the ingredients for the Original Recipe yet it's used for the extra crispy / spicy version.
One more thing I want to add about achieving the same texture and appearance of the OR fried skin is that I let my raw chicken soak for a few minutes in very cold water before draining it by hand and then throwing multiple pieces into my blow of seasoned flour and rolling the pieces around all sloppily and all over the bowl until I make a big mess in my sink and then I knock each piece against the edge of the bowl, visually check it, and then toss it onto a metal rack to sit for no more than 3 minutes before all the pieces go into a low-budget pressure cooker. Rolling the pieces around in the seasoned flour like that seems to give the skin that twisted raggedy texture after it's been fried. I used to coat one piece at a time but the pieces always came out boring, not anymore.
I hope this post helps.
