Heidi Billotto — food and restaurant writer, recipe developer, and cooking instructor — grew up on Kentucky Fried Chicken’s soft, but full-of-flavor, original recipe. Her father was one of the original KFC franchisees during the 1960s. 

“Colonel Sanders visited our home many times,” Billotto says. “He was famous for developing the recipe of cooking fried chicken in a pressure cooker, at the time a pretty innovative move. The result is a tender wing where the dry seasonings not only flavor the skin, but work their way into the meat as well.”

In honor of National Fried Chicken Day on Wednesday, July 6, Billotto and I enjoyed a red-and-white bucket together so she could share her family’s experience (and offer some helpful frying tips in the process). We opted to pass on utensils — after all, KFC’s motto is “finger lickin’ good.” A necessary accompaniment, though, was bubbles. Prosecco helped cut the greasiness and was as refreshing as the pitcher of sun tea I brought along.

Billotto’s Charlotte culinary career has spanned almost four decades. However, it was really while watching her parents operate in the restaurant industry that her fascination with food piqued. She carefully observed, during her childhood through high school years, while her father left a legal profession and learned Colonel Harland Sanders’ trademark methods. Franchising with KFC turned out to be a promising venture for him, as he eventually led seven Jacksonville, Florida KFCs to prosper before selling. 

“I remember a package of five or six herb-and-spice blend came from this place, and a package of five or six herb-and-spice blend came from that place. What my dad did was mix them together, put them in flour, bread the chicken, fry them in the pressure cookers — which were enormous pressure cookers — and sell the chicken hot out of the fryer, not hot out of a warming box,” Billotto says. The original KFC blend of 11 herbs and spices remains a secret recipe, even to Billotto, that people still attempt to unlock. It is the same one the Colonel developed while serving his chicken to hungry motorists from a filling station in Corbin, Kentucky. 

“It was a good time, it was good for our family,” Billotto says of the franchise experience. “My brother and I both grew up loving food, loving to cook. For me, it became a career. For my brother, it became a hobby he loved.”

Billotto decided to follow in her father’s footsteps by becoming a food industry entrepreneur herself. She started out with her own kitchen shop and cooking school, The Charlotte Russe, and eventually established herself as a local expert, teaching classes around the city at places like Reid’s Fine Foods and Queens University, then Queens College. 

Billotto’s mother was also instrumental in establishing her culinary curiosity. She recalls one summer when her mother felt she and her brother were old enough to start helping prepare supper. She commissioned each of the children to select a weekly dish and prepare it start-to-finish for the family. “The first thing I made was escargot,” Billotto says. She still recalls how her mother made no fuss or discouraging remarks. Rather, her mother took her shopping and helped her obtain everything needed to pull it off. “My brother and I always got to go out to eat at restaurants [during travel for KFC conventions],” Billotto says. “As long as we tasted what we ordered and tried it, to my parents’ credit, nobody ever said to us, ‘Don’t order that, you will not like it.’ I hear parents do that all the time. I wish more people would do [what my parents did] with their kids now. To only serve kids nuggets, while I totally get the ease of that, does a disservice.”

These days, Billotto teaches clients to be bold and enjoy cooking, too. She teaches from her own kitchen, offers private classes, and hosts the collaborative “On the Farm” series. She also continues to craft content through her blog and clients’ social media channels. As I was leaving, she was preparing to teach Coddle Creek Farm followers how to fry pickles using ginger beer and fresh produce via Facebook Live. Billotto’s work ebbs and flows with the changing times, but remains rooted in a passion for supporting local agriculture and showing others how to cook in inspired, yet realistic, ways.  

Whether you’re cooking delicate French cuisine or down-home fried chicken, Billotto believes there are always meticulous details to consider. Here are her top tips:

• Buy a whole chicken, ideally from a farmers’ market, and learn how to cut it up properly. Don’t try to cut bone, cut the cartilage. Where the joints pivot is a good place to initiate a snip.
• Learn wing anatomy to maximize this small but mighty section of the chicken: drumette (useful as an appetizer when prepared like lamb lollipops), flap (Billotto’s favorite part for its tender meatiness), and tip (incredibly flavorful, due to crispy bits gathering there and marrow that emerges upon nibbling). 
• Fry the livers, too. They’re delicious! Note: Not all KFCs offer these on the menu, but the one in Belmont at 6813 Wilkinson Blvd. regularly does. 
• If you salt your chicken before frying, salt it and let it sit; then, pat it dry because salt draws out moisture. Patting the chicken dry also improves the skin’s ability to crisp and brown while frying. Buttermilk flavors and tenderizes chicken well, but you will still want to pat the chicken dry before frying.
• Use only a moderate amount of oil to fry chicken, knowing you will turn pieces once or twice during the process. There is no need to completely submerge the pieces, which wastes oil. Test the frying temperature with a wooden spoon handle rather than splashing water or bits of flour onto hot oil (the latter methods can cause explosions, fires, and burns). Several bubbles will rapidly form around the wooden spoon when the right temperature is achieved.  
• Avoid refrigerating chicken right after frying. This will make the residual grease coagulate into a thick, waxy substance; instead, allow it to drain off and cool down a bit on a baking rack before storing. Don’t sit fried chicken on paper towels; the skin will stick and pull off.

Not into frying your own? Head over to Billotto’s blog for some fun KFC memorabilia and a round-up of where to enjoy fried chicken around town.

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