How Kentucky Fried Chicken Is Made (from Unwrapped) _ Unwrapped _ Food Network

Welcome back to unwrapped .

I'm Mark Summers heating things up with hot oil as we explore America's obsession with fried foods .

It is no surprise .

One of the restaurants that always comes up when you're talking about deep fried comfort foods is Kentucky Fried Chicken , but do not ask for the recipe because it's under lock and key .

Really ?

When it comes to crispy chicken , no one cooks it up quite like Kentucky Fried Chicken .

We have wings , we have strips , we have our snack or sandwiches and of course , our chicken on the bone .

Obviously our original recipe chicken , believe it or not .

This famous face isn't just an ad campaign .

Colonel Harland Sanders was real and you'll never guess where he got his start .

He actually had a Sanders Court and cafe down in Corbin Kentucky .

And uh basically he was part of a gasoline station .

After 10 years of experimenting , he created the most famous fried chicken recipe in America .

The colonel took his chicken very personally .

He had spent a lot of time not only developing the flavor but the color , the texture and it was his idea .

It was his baby .

If you will , then he hit the road to introduce his soon to be famous chicken to restaurant owners .

He put the recipe a couple of pots bag of seasoning in the back of his car and just drove around and talked to restaurant owners .

He was charging a nickel of chicken with his royalty rate today .

It does cost more than a nickel .

But the Colonel's original recipe is still their number one seller .

It's what people crave and they come to our restaurants .

They can only get it at KFC .

Get this .

The Colonel's original handwritten recipe is so secret .

It's actually locked in a vault along with vials containing samples of all 11 herbs and spices .

But much more than that goes into making this chicken .

They start with flour , dry milk , powdered eggs and salt .

And finally , we're going to add the Colonel's secret 11 herbs and spices to mix .

It's such a big secret that not even the people making the mix know what's in it .

Half of them were made in one place , half of them were put together in another place .

The two were shipped somewhere in a third party .

Mixed the , you're not gonna get that recipe next .

It's time to get down and dirty .

Mixing all the ingredients by hand .

This is a process that involves lifting and folding it 20 times .

Then a mechanical mixer takes care of the rest .

This is actually incorporating all the ingredients together .

It also sifts out the clumps of flour .

Then the secret blend goes back into the bin and now we're ready to bread our chicken .

This is a standard eight piece cut of chicken has breast thighs , wings and legs .

It gets a quick dunk in water and a shake .

A shake hit seven times after years of trial and error .

KFC has created very specific techniques and it goes into our flour .

It's all about the magic number seven , we'll lift and fold it for seven times .

We're gonna shake off the excess with our rocker basket and they shake it .

You guessed it seven times .

Now , our chicken is ready to be placed on our racks to be fried .

They even fry it up the same way the Colonel did back in 1940 Colonel Sanders perfected the original recipe chicken about pressure frying his chicken .

So today we still use the same standards .

That's right .

It's cooked in a pressure fryer .

The pressure seals all the juices inside and just like the mystery spices .

The temperature and cook time are top secret .

And here's our famous Colonel's original recipe chicken .

Today , people all over the world enjoy the Colonel's famous chicken .

It's also in 80 countries around the world .

So if you're in another country , you'll still taste that same great flavor that you would at home .

The recipe has been the same for over 60 years and there's no plan to change anytime soon .

Why mess with perfection ?