Make Chicken 65

The origin and explanation of this popular Indian dish is a bit of a mystery: some maintain that the “65” refers to the number of dried chilies you ought to use, some contend that it designates the number of days the chicken should be reared, and still others believe that it was the original menu number for this type of dish. Regardless of the correct answer, this tasty dish is great as a snack, side dish, or even main course. The best part is, you can make it easily in your own home.

Steps

Preparing the Chicken

1. Select your chicken. You can buy your chicken at your local grocery store. Most Chicken 65 recipes call for boneless chicken. The final dish is reminiscent of chicken nuggets—only these are tastier, spicier, grown-up nuggets!
   • You can use boneless chicken tenders or cut up boneless chicken breasts.
   • Many recipes recommend using boneless chicken thighs; the darker meat on the thigh will be juicier than white meat.
   • It's up to you whether you want to remove the skin on your chicken pieces.
2. Prepare the chicken for the marinade. Remove your chicken from its packaging and pat it dry with a paper towel. Then, cut it into bite-sized pieces. The pieces should be approximately 1-2 inches, although you can make them bigger or smaller if you have specific plans in mind.
3. Don’t wash your chicken. Many recipes recommend that you wash your chicken, but there is no need for this. In fact, research consistently shows that washing your chicken will only spread potentially harmful bacteria around your sink and prep areas.
   • Cooking your chicken to an internal temperature of 165 degrees will be sufficient to kill any harmful bacteria.

Preparing the Marinade

1. Choose your chili powder. The heart of this dish is chili powder, so you can choose your favorite. If you are unsure what to use, Kashmiri Chili powder is often highly recommended. If you aren't able to locate this easily, you can always substitute regular red chili powder.
   • Kashmiri Chili powder is an Indian chili powder which is somewhat more mild than regular chili and which is known for its distinctive deep red color.
2. Select your desired spice mixture. Because this is such a popular and flexible dish, chefs and home cooks are inspired to put their own spin on the classic. Try to be creative! Use your cooking knowledge to put together a spice mixture that you think would appeal to you personally.
   • One option is to create a blend of ground clove, cinnamon, and cardamon. You may be able to find this pre-mixed in your grocery store (or specialty market), or you can blend your own.
   • Another possibility would be an earthier blend of spices (cumin, turmeric, and coriander) with a dash of garam masala (a traditional Indian spice mixture, which can include black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cumin, mace, fennel, and many other spices).
   • Don't worry if you don't have all of these spices on hand. You can mix and match with spices from both lists.
3. Experiment with the dish. Try different substitutions and amounts of spices each time you make it to find the spice blend that perfectly appeals to your palette. That’s part of the fun.
4. Find ginger-garlic paste. The recipe calls for ginger-garlic paste. This is sometimes a little difficult to find. If you can't find ginger-garlic paste at your local grocery store or specialty foods market you can easily make your own ginger-garlic paste at home. East Asian and Indian specialty markets are usually good places to look.
   • If you don't want to go to this work, then you can simply substitute ½ teaspoon of minced garlic and ½ teaspoon of minced ginger.
5. Mix the marinade. Once you have gathered together all of your ingredients, this dish is a snap to put together. Simply put aside the chicken, oil, and coriander leaves, and mix all of the other ingredients together in a large bowl.
6. Add water if necessary. Your final marinade will be fairly thick, resembling a batter. Indeed, the marinade will serve as the batter for the final fried chicken dish. If it's too thick, you may add a splash or two of water to thin it out.

Marinating the Chicken

1. Make sure you have cut up your chicken into pieces. You can’t marinate the entire chicken all at once. You want to marinate each strip of chicken separately so that each piece you eat will have a strong flavor.
2. Place your cut up chicken pieces in the marinade. As you put the chicken pieces into the marinade turn them front and back so that the marinade gets on both sides. You don’t need to roll it around in there, just make sure no part of the chicken piece is dry. Otherwise you risk the chicken piece drying out in the fridge.
3. Refrigerate the chicken and marinade. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for a minimum of one hour and up to overnight. This will allow the flavor to really soak into the chicken. If you don’t refrigerate the chicken you risk it going bad, so don’t leave the marinade out on the counter.
   • The longer the chicken marinates, the more tender and flavorful it will be. Try to plan ahead.

Frying the Chicken

1. Heat the oil. Once your chicken has had time to soak up all the spicy goodness from the marinade, you're ready to finish the dish. Fill a large saucepan, deep skillet, or deep-fryer with the oil.
   • You've cut your chicken into small pieces, so the oil doesn't need to be too deep, but it should fill about 1/3 of the pan.
   • The ideal frying temperature for oil is usually listed as around 365ºF (or 185ºC).
   • You can test the oil by dropping a cube of white bread into the oil. When it browns in fifteen seconds, your oil is ready.
2. Fry a couple of test pieces. It's a good idea to begin with frying just one or two pieces of chicken. This will help you verify that the oil is hot enough and give you an idea of how long it will take to fry the chicken. If you don’t want to risk messing up a whole piece of chicken you can cut one piece in half and use that.
   • If the oil doesn't cover the chicken piece entirely, be sure to rotate it after a couple of minutes.
   • If you rotate too early, the chicken may stick, so allow for a crust to form.
   • Once the chicken is browned and crisped remove it from the oil. Now cut it in half to make sure that it's cooked through. This should take about 5-8 minutes.
3. Fry the remainder of your chicken. Once you've finished frying your test pieces, continue frying the remainder of the chicken. Depending upon the size of your pan, you may want to do this in batches.
   • If you fry in batches, place your finished chicken on a plate or baking sheet lined with paper towels. This will help soak up any residual oil and keep the chicken from getting soggy.
4. Keep your finished chicken warm by placing the plate or baking sheet in the oven. Keep the oven on a very low setting, around 200ºF or 93ºC. If you fry in batches, you will need to allow the oil to get back up to temperature before adding a new batch. Your finished chicken could get cold in that time.
5. Garnish and serve your Chicken 65. Once you've fried all of your chicken pieces, garnish with finely chopped fresh coriander leaves. You may also want to give the dish a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. All that you need to do now is enjoy this spicy savory treat!

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Sources and Citations

See also

• Make Chicken Tikka Masala
• Make a Chicken Biryani
• Make Chicken Butter Masala
• Make Chicken Jalfrezi