My friend came back from a shopping trip with this bag of goodies and was all like "I bet you can't make anything out of THIS."
Challenge accepted!
So what's inside the er, 'packet'?
Ain't that a thing of beauty! Chips, 1 chicken leg, 2 pieces of chicken from a bit of chicken anatomy that I have no idea even existed, 1/2 liter of Pepsi.
And how does it all taste?
Succulent, moist, well balanced, delicious, inspiring. These are words I would not use to describe a KFC 3 piece meal deal for £4.99. Whereas soggy, limp, greasy, salty, tragic, granular, are all just words.
Anyway, what am I going to do with all this delectable goodness?
After much original thought and not because Saturday Kitchen was on TV I decide to make a Szechuan inspired stir fry which I kick off by deconstructing the Meal Deal...
First I break up the skin, bones and chicken (FYI I can't believe how greasy this stuff is):
But what about the Pepsi I hear you cry? Well, I reckon I'm going to make a sweet reduction made from the bones and the soft drink:
Yeah, I know, inspired genius.
And with the skin I decide to make crispy chicken scratchings by placing them into my professional chef's oven at 180c for 20 minutes...
And with the chips I create a sophisticated piece of conceptual art:
*cough*
So lets meet the rest of team Szechuan stir fry:
1 tsp ground Szechuan pepper, a lemon, tbl spn soy sauce, tsp chutney (for ginger edge), mange tout, green beens, a shallot, 2 cloves garlic, tsp black onion seeds, hot chili oil.
Moving swiftly on... after 20 mins I check back with my sweet reduction:
Erm, which tastes exactly how you would expect chicken bones and reduced Pepsi to taste i.e pretty f*cking unique.
Well hey ho I press on with my amazing KFC Far Eastern Tasting Experience by frying the shallot, garlic, onion seeds and pepper in a searing hot wok:
Woking (ahahaaa!) very fast I add the vegetables, soy sauce, lemon juice and Pepsi reduction and stir furiously for about 45 seconds, altering the balance by adding more lemon juice:
The last step is to assemble my incredible KFC Szechuan stir fry on a bed of jasmin rice and to crown it all with a crispy KFC chicken skin crouton I've just taken out the oven:
All hail!
And how does it taste?
Well well well! The combo of everything together, especially the baked skin, is really nice; very umami, sweet, sour, aromatic! On the slightly negative side it certainly has a powerful kick and if you were to try this at home I would maybe use half a tsp of pepper and go easy on the chili oil too; and be careful with the lemon juice because it's maybe a wee bit sour. But overall, I'm really happy with my reconstructed-deconstructed-KFC-£4.99-meal-deal Szechuan stir fry!
But what do you think? Have you tried reduced Pepsi or other soft drink reductions with your food? Are you a big fan of KFC? Then why not head over to the facebook page and tell other food geeks about it!...
