Cooking chicken can be an art, keeping it tender and moist. The use of batter is a brilliant idea and it does this splendidly; and it this that has made it the winning recipe for KFC being so enticing and thus successful. It is the encasing completely of every bit of surface in batter, and then deep frying it, sealing it so the juices don't escape into the cooking oil and which offers what will be that marvellous crunch as the diners break through that golden casing into hot moist chicken that can't fail to please. The batter also offers a perfect way of flavouring the chicken underneath in any manner wished for so that variations in local taste can be made by just adding spices, herbs and smoky sauces and extra salt to get Cajun, Texan,New York etc.
The deep frying and the batter tends to act a visual gloss over of the perhaps not so glamorous irregularities of chopped up chicken impossible to achieve easily in a fry pan.
The problem is this. The batter is burned flour laden with fat of from an undefined or indeterminate standard.
Repeated use of the oil has to be part of the economics of KFC to make it profitable.
So it is well to think on this as the default scenario. The fat is old, it has turned the batter, itself in its uncooked state being a slurry of refined carbohydrate, into what is probably an acrylamide spiked,and heat damaged product offering that so desired crunch..
Sadly much the same issues can be directed to fish and chips, bought from a fish shop, that is. In the old days beef dripping was used and I can remember seeing those big cookers at the back of the shop white first thing in the morning having gone solid being turned off overnight.
Now fish and chips are cooked in vegetable oil which I suspect is healthier than animal fat in the beginning but might deteriorate more quickly with prolonged and repeated heating.
If you need to have your chicken ( the pieces should be flattish or at least not too irregular ) or your fish battered do it at home not in your deep oil frier but in a fry pan with a minimal of fat and watch it carefully so it doesn't stick.
Sorry to be a spoil sport but one is just better without batter!
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