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Breaded chicken. Love it, naked chicken love it. Any chicken except spicy chicken love it. Pork chops taste like steak, love it. Steak can't afford it. LOL.
Is it Tuesday yet? That is the target date for the return of my Boy Racer. Received a text from the body shop today that they are "nearing completion" I am chomping at the bit. The GMC Terrain is a nice vehicle, but it is not as "peppy" as my Charger. Of course, the flipside of that is that it basically gets double the gas mileage of my gas hog too.
Got lunch from El Faro / El Farolito . Allegedly the restaurant that invented the super burrito. I don't know what the whole story is behind that business, and how it's structured. But San Francisco recently tried to ban them from opening another location. Ugly court battle. With allegations racism, classism, NIMBYism...... The people who own over a dozen taquerias leased a space, remodeled it, hired workers, and were ready to open another taqueria. A City Supervisor representing the district went to every level of city government to block their every move, by stalling, delaying, or denying various permits and licenses...... occupancy permit, fire permit, health department permit, business license, tax registration, etc. Allegedly, the Supervisor was trying to preserve the character of the neighborhood - Little Italy and Chinatown. A taqueria would be outside of the theme of Italian and Chinese culture. It was further alleged that the taqueria had so many locations that it would be like a chainstore operation - McDonalds, Starbucks, Home Depot - which would not be in the interest of competing small businesses.
I don't really care. I like their burritos. I went to one of their outlets for lunch today. Good stuff.
I'm more concerned about the weather app on my phone being accurate.
Politics. Not "red & blue", Democrats vs Republicans. But good old fashioned pay-off politics. A City Supervisor in The City & County is the equivalent of a county supervisor & city council position, all rolled into one. The City is divided into districts and the Supervisor represents that district. It's an elected position. People in the district contribute to election campaigns. A lot of cash is "donated". In an area where you literally have over 100 businesses already selling food, wine, and beer - nobody wants another competitor moving in on their territory.
The taqueria people will point out the obvious objections. Their food will not waterdown the integrity of a themed neighborhood. They will only add diversity, and enrich the lives of people in that neighborhood. Their business is not patterned to attract extra traffic, nor will it be an attractive nuisance creating crime. Plus, right across the street, within 100 yards, is a restaurant named TaCorea, where Korean people are selling Korean Tacos. Then they start paying off whomever they know at City Hall to expedite the permits in process. Next they have hearings, and the whole thing goes to court.
Ultimately, politicians on both sides get to walk away with a lot of money, and the business is now open and operating.
Imagine if you had a spaghetti stand at the mall. I want to open a business selling "San Francisco potato chips" in that same mall. You start telling everyone that my potato chips will bring down the mall's image which is upheld with your "Fine Fresno Spaghetti". I tell everyone that you are prejudiced against "San Francisco Potato Culture". You and the other merchants pay off the mall manager to not let me move in. It works for awhile. Then I go to the mall's district manager, and I start paying them off to let me move in. Eventually, the mall manager takes your cash, my cash goes to people at the next level of pay grade. I open it right next to you, selling potato chips. And we're both looking at each other, every day, glaring with angry eyes and spite. Those dirty mall people are laughing at us because they took our money.
I am pretty sure, that no matter what I do, I will never be able to make restaurant fried chicken at home. My stove top will just not produce the BTUs to get the oil hot enough, then maintain the temperature.
Do you think it would be "crossing the line", if I buy a commercial chicken fryer?
KFC does their chicken in a pressure cooker. All you'd have to do then is figure out the secret herbs and spices (I know two of them are salt and pepper).
The real secret, which is not a secret, is the pressure fryer. It is patented. The Colonel's idea was to fry chicken in a pressure cooker. That didn't really work. A regular pressure cooker wasn't made to be filled with oil. So he invented his own pressure fryer. Other makers have copied it - with a few changes. I can only imagine the cost of installing my own commercial grade pressure fryer, with the exhaust hood.
There's a lot of really good fried chicken. Not all restaurants use a pressure fryer. A lot of good fried chicken is made in an open deep fryer. I've cooked my whole life. The only thing that I have learned, is that it's not so easy to make good fried chicken. There's a science.
The KFC secret herbs and spices has been allegedly revealed. Although, every version on the internet is probably not the real secret recipe, since most of the internet recipes are different. I can season the chicken to my own taste. Which is salt and pepper. Even then, nobody can agree. Kosher salt, Himalayan pink salt, Morton's salt with iodine? Course ground pepper, fine ground pepper, white pepper? I'm pretty sure that you can fry chicken with onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, or one of those multi seasoning blends you find in grocery stores. Trader Joe's has a 21 seasoning blend, which is sold at Wal*Mart.
You would have to love chicken an awful lot to go through the expense of getting a commercial pressure cooker. Imagine how many times you could dine in at KFC fr the amount you would spend.
A bucket of chicken dinner, with all the sides and drinks, is around $60. That's a lot of money for fast food. Which is why I would rather fry my own chicken. A grocery store chicken is about $5.
50 dinners, or $3,000, will pay for the fryer, and probably whatever else it would cost to install such an apparatus. I don't have room for it in my kitchen. I would probably install it in the backyard. I would need to build some sort of lemonade stand style countertop, plus a roof to protect the cooking area from the rain. So maybe if I ate at KFC every day for a year, that would be about the same. Wal*Mart sells a pressure fryer for less than $1,000. It's about 4 gallons, so I'll only be able to make 1 bucket of chicken at a time.
Comparing a $5 chicken to a meal for four from KFC is not a fair comparison. Add the sides, and the drinks, and it would be fair. Of course, buying mashed potatoes, and coleslaw and drinks at Walmart would still be cheaper than $56.49
I usually only go to KFC for their coleslaw. They charge to much for their chicken, even though it tastes great, I can't afford it.
In all fairness, the KFC bucket has 2 chickens. Not 1. So that's about $10 worth of chicken. If you make the side orders, there's another $6 or $8 worth of groceries. Add in a few more dollars for things like salt, pepper, flour, gravy mix, mayo, oil....etc. KFC is getting their food at wholesale pricing. So the KFC food cost is maybe half of what you and I pay retail. It cost KFC around $10 or $12, for what you and I would spend $20. KFC sells the meal for a little over $60 after you pay the local sales tax. Then KFC has the other overhead of rent, utilities, labor, assorted operating costs, and franchise fees to pay off the shareholders YUM Brands.
Traditional frying leaves a lot to be desired. You get dark burn spots on the outside, and the meat inside near the bone is still raw. The lower temperature on a stove top doesn't get hot enough, and instead of frying, you're just boiling chicken in oil for a longer period of time. Then you get greasy pieces of chicken, soggy with oil, and not crispy. No doubt about it, that The Colonel's patented pressure fryer is superior. Many other chicken restaurants use a similar pressure fryer system. No homeowner will invest thousands into a piece of equipment just to fry chicken. That chicken fryer sold at Wal*Mart is actually for home use. The actual restaurant equipment cost closer to $15,000, and can cook up to 8 chickens in under 15 minutes.
I like eating fried chicken. KFC has gotten too expensive. I just want to make a fried chicken dinner. However, I doubt if I'm investing thousands of dollars to do it. I'll just have to fry chicken the old fashion way. It just will not be as good. Or fried chicken will be a special occasion meal. At $60, you have a lot of food options.
A whole bird! Somebody's hungry. I used to buy the whole rotisserie chicken that they sell at Walmart's Neighborhood market, but the last time I did, I ended up getting food poisoning. So, I have not bought one since. After church today, I went there and bought some chicken patties, to make chicken sandwiches with.
Tim Young, that chicken looks really good. So good, that I want to come over for dinner. I like the cast iron pan. That's a nice touch.
My dinner tonight, and for the next few nights, will be stew. You can't make 1 meal. You have to make a pot. And that pot usually last a few days. I used chuck roast. The big piece that is sometimes cut into chuck eye steaks. It's the front part of the rib eye, or prime rib, in front of where the butcher makes the cut between the 5th & 6th rib. In the old days, that was one of those "secret" pieces of meat that butchers would save for themselves. I could have cooked it as steaks. The weather was just right for a pot of tender beef, cooked in tomatoes, carrots, celery, and onions. Perfect for serving over a scoop of rice. Hot, brown, and lots of it. Only nobody wants to see a photo of brown stuff in a pot.
