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, a franchise that eventually became a small group of independently owned eat shops known for their frozen custard. In 1954 the Broaster company trademarked the term and began selling pressure-fryers and seasoning to foodservice operations around the country. Among the advantages of broaster-made chicken, other than juiciness that verges on viscous, is that cooking time is much less than old-fashioned pan-frying.
Although the Broaster company boasts that its fried product contains a mere fraction of the fat, carbs, and calories of KFC chicken, it did recently introduce a Bro-Tisserie, which cooks whole chickens in a rotisserie oven, bypassing the deep fat altogether.