Ever Wanted To Work at KFC HQ?

It's something we've all dreamt about. Imagine working behind the scenes for KFC...what would it be like? What is the Colonel like as a boss? Do you get to eat KFC all day? Is everyone terribly obese? These are just some of the questions that I had, and thankfully many of them were answered in this interesting feature from Marketing magazine. Click the image to read the article and find out what it is actually like to be an employee of the greatest chicken merchants on the planet.

Boneless wonders

For years now I've been somewhat of a pariah in the chicken eating world. the 'bird' is the most scrumptious of all the meats and with 11 simple additions becomes the world's greatest foodstuff. My problem, however, is that I've always found the menu limited due to my inability to eat chicken on the bone. For years I got by with fillet burgers, then in time 'zing' was introduced to the menu. Now however the proportion of boneless products on the Colonels menu has mushroomed. we now have more choice than ever before and 'boneless' has actually become a buzzword. There are mini fillets, crispy strips, fillet burgers, fillet towers, twisters, popcorn chicken, the wrapstar (will it make a comeback) the original boneless box, the slightly larger 15.99 boneless box and recently the boneless variety box. but the newest addition the "boneless bites flavour station" with barbecue, sweet chilli and fiery pepper sauces to choose from. This burgeoning class of boneless foodstuffs is heartily welcomed. Score 1 for the colonel!

Bouncers Hired to Prevent Trouble at KFC

KFC Camden has become the first fast-food restaurant in Britain to be forced to employ bouncers in an effort to prevent trouble at the crime-ridden location. In recent times, patrons of the North London eatery have been slashed with a knife, smashed with a bottle and kicked in the head, while reports have suggested that the premise often "smelt of cannabis".

Aside from the fact you'd need to be clucking mad to venture here after dark, I am curious as to what new rules have been put in place with the introduction of this new security. If my knowledge of bouncers is anything to go by, I can only assume that there is some kind of dress code to be followed and that you must be able to walk in a straight line to get in. Of course in this case, I fully support these requirements - as we all know, if you're not visiting KFC dressed as a Kentucky gent in a fine white suit, with a fresh palette to sample the Colonel's delicious chicken, then you shouldn't be there anyway.

Read more here.

Lancaster: The Review

Lancaster KFC has for many years been an extremely sad experience. Sure, the Colonel did a fantastic job renovating the place with bright colours, Kandinsky prints and even a large kiddie's banquet table. Sadly, that was probably in around 1980. Up until last year, grease dripped from the ceiling (literally), tables were left strewn with rubbish and the kiddie's table? Well let's just say, the Colonel's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices has an incredible ability to make its way between a glass surface and the printed table veneer underneath it. This was not a place you'd want to spend a lazy afternoon in. Proceedings used to go something like this:

• Enter
• Queue for a ridiculously long time
• Order
• Wait
• Wait some more
• Receive order from a server who looked as though he'd grown up in an Oliver Twist era poor house
• Eat lukewarm chicken purely because you knew you'd be letting Harland down if you didn't
• Feel dirty

So it comes as an extremely pleasant surprise that Lancaster KFC has finally been refurbished. Imagine the looks of joy on our faces when our Northern correspondent first informed us. "What would they alter?" we wondered. "Will we ever be able to enjoy our lukewarm chicken on the kiddie table again?". Our answers were forthcoming upon the reopening in February: "It's exactly the same" our misinformed correspondent told us. Saddened by this news, it was with a heart full of sorrow and a head full of low expectations that we made our way back to KFC.

Lancaster KFC sits at the very peak of what we can refer to as the town centre, thus rendering it visible from a great distance and causing it to act as an extremely gratifying welcome to the town itself. Even from this great distance, we could tell our correspondent was severely misinformed. The signage has been updated with the new branding, the interior completely renovated. Even the kiddie's table has gone (attempts to locate it in skips out the back were unsuccessful). But the best addition? Lancaster KFC now contains two large leather sofas to kick back and enjoy that chicken on. Surely a first for the chain. The Zinger Tower was excellent. Excellent to the degree that long term KFC veteran and contributor to this blog, Dave, said it was the greatest he had ever tasted. This is how fried chicken should be my friends.

8/10

(Northern correspondent is now fired)

Toasted twister home recreation: attempt 1

Sometimes, as Albad rightly pointed out, a trip to KFC, no matter how tempting, is simply impossible. You might be in an area with no KFC's within the minimum 20 mile radius, you might be unable to leave the house, or, like me; you were curious- you wanted to walk the zen path of KFC and recreate the colonels early experimental years yourself, attempting to make delicious chicken dishes nearly as good as could be served to you in any upstanding kfcookery in the kfcountry.

Ingredients for attempt 1 (again, all available at Sainsburys for the sake of tradition (not every ingredient is necessary for variants))

Southern fried chicken breast fillets
Sainsburys hot salsa
Bacon
Ranch dressing
Salad
Cheese -here I'm using red Leicester
Mayo, pepper (for KFC's signature pepper mayo, see right)
tortilla wraps.

I had more than enough ingredients pictured here to make multiple toasted twister variants - namely the original, salsa and the new melted BLT. Obviously ingrediants will vary based on your choice of what to construct.

Construction


This was a more experimental affair than previous documentation
on this site of reKFCreations, so subsequent attempts should prove neater and more reasonably portioned than this. I'll initially describe how to prepare the new melted BLT variant.

Begin by starting to cook the chicken, which should take around 20 minutes. Around the last 5 minutes of cooking, you should be putting on the bacon to cook - ensure that it's crispy and firm by the time you want to place it in your wrap. I advise grilling, especially as you'll need to gently toast your wrap later.

While you're waiting for all your ingredients to cook, it might be a good idea to start preparing the wrap. Wash your salad and chop your cheese (or remove it from it's packaging) as well as laying out your tortilla wrap.

When the chicken is cooked, remove it and slice it thinly enough to fit in your wrap. Add a little salad on top, the bacon slices, a little
salsa to recreate the original dishes tomato, and finally a drizzle of ranch dressing for authenticity. Now close up the wrap and toast it gently (overtoast it and it will become brittle as an osteogenesis imperfecta patients bones... have I been watching too much House again?). And... voila! it should be finished.

The verdict 6.5/10 + 7.5/10


While obviously the same complaints as always apply - chiefly the chicken not being up to the colonels high standards, the overall effect, taste and presentation-wise was extremely similar to the real wraps. The original toasted twister salsa recipe had a slight edge over it's rival however (just remove the cheese and bacon and add the pepper mayo seen above), but this may have been due to the fact that both the portion size and cooking times were slightly adjusted for the latter wrap, whereas the melted BLT was a giant even by stomach standards - the thing took two hands to lift, two tortilla wraps to hold it and literally two people to eat it. Hold back on the portions used KFC fans - you'll end up with a better wrap out of it. Subsequent attempts might show the melted blt to be the superior wrap with the greater experience gleaned from this experimental feastery.


This weekend, while in the process of seeking out the vast amounts of food necessary to support my titantic, KFC-and-lager wrought body, I'll be providing both a review of one of Brighton's 2 KFC branches as well as an overview of the real melted BLT toasted twister at the same time. See you then!