Glen Cove man 'cracks' KFC's secret recipe

Washington, July 21 (ANI): Kentucky Fried Chickens (KFC) original recipe is perhaps one of the most closely guarded trade secrets, but Ron Douglas from Glen Cove claims he's almost figured it out.

Douglas spent years experimenting with different techniques in an attempt to reproduce KFC's Original Recipe.

At one point, he said, he grew so desperate that he approached workers at some of KFC's Long Island stores, and even tried bribing them.

"They don't know the recipe. The seasoning comes all prepackaged," Douglas said.

Douglas said that after years of experimentation, he created what he said is an approximation of founder Colonel Harland Sanders' famous recipe.

The 34-year-old's recipe is in his new book "America's Most Wanted Recipes," published recently by Simon and Schuster.

It includes more than 200 recipes emulating the specialties of restaurant chains including Olive Garden, the Cheesecake Factory and Red Lobster.

Douglas, 34, said his fried chicken is "pretty much the same" as the Colonel's.

"We've done taste tests, and a lot of people can't tell the difference. It's very close," The Newsday quoted him as saying.

However, KFC has dismissed Douglas' imitation recipe.

"Plenty of people have tried to duplicate the recipe over the years but there is still only one place to get authentic Original Recipe Chicken - at a KFC restaurant," said spokesman Rick Maynard.

The original recipe, which the KFC Web site says Sanders carried in his head until he died in 1980, is kept in a safe in the company's Louisville headquarters.

Hunting down recipes is a full-time job for Douglas, who left a position as finance manager at JP Morgan two years ago after founding RecipeSecrets.net in 2003.

He works out of the home he shares with his wife, Nilaja, a human resources manager, and their two children, ages 5 and 2. (ANI)