Being Chicken-Holics, We Explored KFC's Kitchen! What We Saw Made Us Fall In Love With It

A few days back, while we were craving for a bucket of chicken wings, we skipped lunch from the office cafeteria and headed straight to KFC. Of course, being true chicken-holics, smokey grilled chicken or a bucket of hot & crispy chicken was the only thing we could dream of for a mouth-watering luncheon experience.

So, we drove to the nearest mall in Gurgaon and stopped by the KFC outlet there. As we were looking at the menu (though in our minds we already knew what we wanted), we noticed this poster at the kitchen door.

Indiatimes

Well, a kitchen tour huh? That seemed interesting! Being hardcore chicken-holics, we always had dreamt of knowing what makes a bucket of KFC crispy chicken so-so succulent and finger lickin' tasty, therefore a kitchen tour was just the thing to make our day! So, we went ahead and asked the manager to show us around a little bit.

The Storage & Marination Area - Chicken Hub

The first place where he took us was the storage area - where the chicken, vegetables and beverage were stored. After receiving fresh chicken from the vendor, it is marinated. To ensure that fresh chicken is served at all times, the shelf-life after is kept as just 48 hours for chicken, and 24 hours for veggies. There was a large rotatory vessel to marinate the chicken with KFC's secret ingredients. Of course, we couldn't see the process, as that part is usually done overnight.

KFC's X-Factor - The Breading Area

KFC

This was one of the most interesting things which we liked most about the chicken making process in KFC. Breading is basically coating the chicken with flour. And the amount of flour to be layered depends on the product - it's lesser for chicken popcorns, but more for hot and crispy chicken.

KFC

The employee tossed in half a kg of marinated chicken in a tub of clean flour, he sifted it neatly to cover them up well. And then he dipped the flour-layered chicken into a tub of drinking water (taken from the RO). He drained them with a strainer and put the flour-layered chicken into the flour tub.

The Frying Zone

KFC

Once layered up well, the chicken pieces are put in one by one, into the sizzling hot oil (which is checked with a visibility meter to ensure that it's still safe for re-use). 171 degree Celsius is the temperature used for making hot and crispy chicken (deep fried for 13 minutes), while 250 degrees is needed for smoky grilled and 181 degrees for fries and patties!

The Stocking- Up Spot

KFC

After this, it was transferred to the hot oven. And apparently, again it's just kept there for 2 hours maximum (they have tags with the timings noted down for each batch that goes in). If it doesn't get sold, it gets discarded. While we would have almost cried at the thought of buckets of chicken being wasted, they told us that they do it to follow stringent hygiene standards. It's as per the hazard analysis and critical control point (HACCP), that they stick to such timelines. In fact, french fries are thrown off if they aren't sold within 7 minutes!! Yes, you are reading it right!

Now we know, what really goes in to making our bucket of KFC chicken extra-special?

KFC

KFC

Want to know more? Well these guys who are involved in the kitchen, wash their hands every 30 minutes for almost 3 minutes (following a particular cleaning process), just to ensure hygiene! Their utensils are sanitized 7 times a day. And even all the vegetarian and non-vegetarian offerings at KFC are prepared separately ¨C everything right from the oil, utensils, and ingredients are segregated. Even the people working in the vegetarian section wear Green aprons vis-¨¤-vis the Red that is sported by those in the non-veg section. Cool, right?

Bon Appetite!

KFC

Knowing how hygienically our bucket of chicken wings are made, our appetite just simply doubled all the more! Made the hard way, it was simply finger-licking! I am definitely going to KFC again this weekend!