M&H Restaurant

A portmanteau of broiling and roasting, broasting – almost always applied to chicken – in fact is neither. To broast a chicken is to deep fry it in a pressure cooker. The technique and equipment were devised in the 1950s by L.A.M. Phelan, who already had made a name for himself as the founder of Zesto drive-ins. In 1954 the Broaster company trademarked the term and began selling pressure-fryers and seasoning to foodservice operations around the country. You’ll still find broasted chicken coast-to-coast. One of our favorite sources is in Moorhead, Minnesota — a gas-station that is one of a local chain of M&H convenience stores.

While it is not the most juice-dripping bird you’ll ever eat, it might be among the most flavorful. The hot-oil bath under pressure somehow forces extra lusciousness into the crisp skin as well as into the meat below, resulting in thighs, breasts, and drumsticks that are to ordinary fried chicken what baby back ribs are to spare ribs: more tender and easier to eat, albeit lacking rugged personality. For comfort food, this stuff can’t be beat.

The chicken is cooked and presented in the convenience-store part of the M&H gas station, which has all the sundries one expects as well as a handful of places where you can sit here and eat. M&H is a local chain, but this is the one with extraordinary chicken. (And if you do need to compare and contrast, there is a KFC just up the road and across the street.)