My KFC Dinner Attempt

I cracked open my restaurant secrets cookbook again tonight and fried chicken for the 1st time.  And not just any friend chicken; I wanted to duplicate KFC!  KFC fries their chicken in special pressure cookers.  My pressure cooker's manual said that oil was a no-no and could cause a fire, so I had to figure out another way.  I talked over my options with the hubs - just fry the chicken in oil until it was done or fry it for half the time, just to get the color and crispiness on the outside, and move it to the pressure cooker for the remainder of the cooking time to obtain moist, juicy chicken through and through.  He said to go for the latter.  So, here's what I did...

Put 1 cup flour, 2 tbsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper and 1/2 tsp Accent (pure MSG) in a bag and shake to combine.

The whole chicken I bought and cut up was over 6 lbs and the breasts were huge, so I just fried the legs, thighs and wings.  I sprinkled them with salt and pepper and put them in the fridge for 2 hours. Then let them sit on the counter for 30 minutes to come back to room temperature.

I whisked together 1 egg and 2 cups milk (way too much liquid, but you can't really cut an egg in half) and coated each chicken piece in the mixture.

Then I put each chicken piece in the seasoned flour bag and shook to coat.

I heated canola oil in my dutch oven to 350 degrees and put the thighs in 1st, since they would take the longest.  I cooked the thighs for 7 minutes and the legs and wings for 5 minutes.

These are my thighs after they came out of the oil.

These are my thighs and legs.  The legs did not brown as much as the thighs. I'm accounting this to the cooling of the oil as more chicken was placed in it.

These are my wings after coming out of the oil.

 I forgot to take a picture of the chicken in the pressure cooker before closing it up.  Since there has to be some form of liquid in a pressure cooker, and it cannot be oil, I put 1 cup of water in the bottom.  I put the meat/steaming rack in, set the chicken pieces on top of it and set the timer to 7 minutes on high.

This is what the chicken looked like after it came out of the pressure cooker.  It was tender and juicy and tasted just like KFC - plenty salty.  LOL!  However, it was not crisp; it was soggy.  The hubs has suggested that next time, I pressure cook 1st to get the moist, juicy meat, and then fry to crisp up the outside.  I want to try that.  I also want to try just frying it.