One of my favorite restaurants long ago was FOBs in Crystal Falls in the UP, when we went bowhunting. I wanted to make my own broasted chicken so I got a tip on using the "Wear Ever Chicken Bucket" which is supposedly thee thing to make broasted chicken in - I found and bought one.

Basically it's a pressure cooker with a lid that would need a nuclear explosion to blow it off the way it attaches. The instructions say to use 5 cups of canola oil in this 4 quart model, but another recipe online says you only need 1/4 cup of oil when using a regular pressure cooker.

Broasted chucked is suppose to be dry and crispy on the outside but moist on the inside - that's exactly how the broasted chicken was at FOBs. But I think they used a broasted chicken "special oven" to make theirs.

I'm concerned that cooking the chicken - albeit pressurized - is going to be rather greasy like regular fried chicken if immersed in oil, unless being in a pressure cooker has some magic ability from making it not greasy on the outside.

So how you the broasters on here make their chicken? Thanks.

I was working on a job over in CA years ago and got to hanging out at a bar and grill that had killer broasted chicken.
They had a big commercial rig that was basically a deep fryer/pressure cooker combo.
The oil they dropped the chicken halves in was as deep as any other deep fryer for whatever that's worth.

I'm not familiar with broasting, but out here, several places use pressure fryers made by a company called Henny Penny.

Best fried chicken ever. Seriously good stuff. Far better than any home style fried bird I ever ate in the south.

Only thing is it comes out so freaking hot it's an exercise in self control just sitting there staring at it long enough to cool down to a temp where you can touch it, much less eat it.

KFC is pressure fried, they used to use Henny Penny fryers, no idea what they use now.

Hate to hear that, you should have had my Grandma Polly's chicken fried in lard with a cast iron fryer here in little ole SC.

Hah! Never new that about KFC! I would have assumed they just used deep fryers.

I hadn't heard of a pressure fryer until I moved out here. Seems all the little taverns out here pressure fry chicken.

Those pressure fryers sound a lot like the "broasting" machine I was talking about.
Probably the same thing.
And yes....it's fantastic!!

Main Street Ventura?

http://broaster.com/

I even have the app on my phone that tells me when I'm close to a one of their outlets.

I love the stuff.

Close.....Gabbys in Carpenteria.....about 1982 IIRC.
We were working on a big apartment job up in Santa Barbara.
We used to go down to Ventura for the flat track races on the weekends though.

I made my first batch of "broasted chicken" yesterday in my handy dandy Wear Ever Chicken Bucket - I wasn't impressed. I had the oil up to the 350 degrees, browned them for the recommended 2 minutes and put the cover and sealed it for another 12 minutes per instructions.

About half of the batter coating came off and they could have cooked a bit longer in my opinion. But the worst part they were greasy as heck on the outside - just as I expected when using the 5 cups of oil they were immersed in.

I'm going to try find or make a some type of tray or rack that will sit 2" or so off the bottom to lay the chicken on. I'll brown them for 2 minutes and then take them out, set the tray in and put the chicken back on top of it. I'll figure something out as the current way isn't going to work for me.

I may try the other method I found that uses a regular pressure cooker but only 1/4 cup of oil.