Chicken 65 - Any Hyderabadi’s favorite dish! Well, I guess maybe after the hyderabadi Biryani :)  I dont want to start any holy wars here but today my post is about Chicken 65. A lot has been talked about this dish’s origin which can read on wikipedia. I believe Sanjay Thumma from vahrehvah.com got it right by saying this chicken dish was the 65th item on a menu. As popularity rose in the restaurant, it started being called Chicken 65.

I was browsing the internet the other day and came across a friends photo blog of his recent visit to India on facebook. Being a self proclaimed foodie, watching the slideshow was very torturous, but it got some really good memories of places to eat in New Delhi and Hyderabad. I thought the best way to deal with this would be to cook this dish. I called my cousins and we decided to meet up that day. I offered to make chicken 65 as an appetizer and my cousin offered to make spaghetti in a turkey meat sauce(yum) for dinner.  Ultimately I was very glad with the results of my dish. I think this has been my best attempt so far in making this dish. Here is the recipe -

Ingredients

Boneless skinless Chicken thighs -3 pounds
Green chillies - 5-6 slit and the cut in half
Ginger - grated 3-4 tsp
Garlic- grated 3-4 tsp
Curry leaves -10-15 leaves
One egg
Corn starch - 4-5 tsp
2 cups yogurt

Spices

Salt - according to taste
Pepper - 1 tsp
Deghi mirch - 3 tsp
Lal mirch - 3 tsp (depending on how spicy you want it)
Garam masala - 1.5 tsp
Haldi - 1/2 tsp
MSG - 1/2 tsp

Method

Cut chicken in small cubes
Marinate chicken for an hour in salt, pepper, deghi mirch 1.5 tsp, lal mirch 1.5 tsp,.5 tsp of MSG
Mix the chicken in the marinate and while mixing add an egg to the chicken and then mix in corn starch
Whisk  the rest of the spices in yogurt and keep aside
Fry the chicken and make pakodas and keep aside
Add 2 tbl spoon of oil in a wok, heat and then add Mustard seeds - Add Ginger, garlic, green chillies and curry leaves.
Once a little brown and dry, add the fried chicken and mix it well
Add the whisked yogurt
Cook till yogurt is dried up

Here is what it looked like after the pakoda’s were made -

Here is the finished product -

The reason this does not look red in color was because I did not use any food coloring.

Enjoy