Chicken-65 / Indian Chicken Nuggets

chicken-65

Chicken 65 is a spicy, deep-fried chicken dish popular in South India as an entree, or quick snack.

There are many stories for how the name came out, I heared that it is simply the 65^th item on the menu, not sure of how true it is though. If we keep the question of how the name came about , the taste is certainly delectable to all non-veg lovers.

I call this, the Indian version of chicken nuggets.

I don’t stock Azinomotto in my pantry because of its controversies. Instead, I use the regular salt.

Let’s whip up this ever popular comforting food.

Ingredients -

• Chicken – 1 lb( Boneless chicken cut in to small pieces, I always use thigh portion as it is juicy and soft, one can use the breast piece  )
• 2 tsp Corn Flour
• 1tbsp All purpose (maida) flour
• 1 Egg
• 1 tbsp Ginger Garlic Paste
• 1 tsp Garam Masala
• 1 tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp Red Chili Powder
• 1/2 tsp Red Food Colour
• 2 tsp Vinegar
• Curd (Yogurt) – 1/2 to 3/4 cups
• Oil – For Deep Frying
• 5 Green Chilies slit length wise
• Curry Leaves – 20
• Lemon juice – 4 tbl spoon
• 2 dry red chilies
• 1 tbsp ginger finely chopped
• 1 tbsp Garlic chopped
• 1 stalk of green onions

Directions-

1. Wash and cut chicken into ½ inch pieces.
2. To the chicken add yogurt , salt, ginger garlic paste, black pepper, salt and mix well. Leave aside for 20 min.
3. Add corn flour and all purpose flour, mix well and leave aside for 10 minutes.
4. Break egg into the chicken and mix (Caution: Do not whip the egg, just mix it.)
5. Heat oil in a frying pan  and fry the chicken in batches (while frying do not over crowd). Immediately after adding chicken reduce heat and fry for 3-4 minutes. ( don’t over fry, 5 minutes is more than enough to cook the chicken).
6. Keep the fried chicken aside.
7. In a wide skillet, heat 1 tbsp oil, add Jeera (cumin) and one red chili, add ginger and stir fry in low heat for 15 seconds.Add chopped garlic and stir fry to light brown, add curry leaves stir and add chopped green  chili.
8. Add black pepper powder, cumin and chili powder stir (remove from heat time to time to prevent burn out)
   Add vinegar , keep stirring. Taste the sauce and add required salt to taste. ( The chicken already has some salt)
   add red color mixed in 1 tbsp water, stir and add 3 tbsp water or more to make a thick sauce. ( The sauce consistency should be such that after mixing the chicken, it should not be too dry or too sticky and fluid.)
9. Stir the sauce well and with heat, add the chicken and mix well under low heat so that the sauce is well coated. Remove from heat and keep mixing.
10. The water in sauce will percolate into the chicken to some extent. So wait for some time to assess if you need more heating to drive some extra moisture out.
11. Garnish with chopped green onions and lemon juice ( optional)
12. Eat as a starter, snack or with roti, rice.
13. NOTE: Dont over fry chicken. This size of the pieces should be tender within 3 minutes and one can eat straight after frying. Unnecessary frying will make the chicken hard and  dry.

You can fry excess amount of chicken and store in deep fridge for future use, not only for this also for all kinds of Indo-Chinese chicken dishes.
Add as much chili as you want. The red color is a traditional addition to dish and has nothing to do with the taste. But without the red color, no one will recognize it as chicken 65

chicken-65