Chicken 65

Chicken 65

Chicken 65 is a spicy, deep-fried chicken dish popular in South India, as a bar snack, entree, or quick snack. The flavour of the dish comes from ginger, cayenne pepper, mustard powder and vinegar although the exact recipe can vary. It can be prepared using chicken on or off the bone.

The name

Chicken 65 is said to be derived from the Indian-Chinese cuisine, popularly known in India as Indo-Chinese food.

While the name "Chicken 65" is universally used to refer to the dish, there are many different stories for how the name came about. It is generally acknowledged that no one knows which (if any) of these anecdotal theories are correct

• Chicken 65 is alleged to be a dish introduced in 1965 by the Buhari Hotel restaurant in Chennai. They also offer Chicken 78, Chicken 82 and Chicken 90, introduced in 1978, 1982 and 1990 respectively.

All these are various histories and are myths for the name of this recipe!

• The dish is said to require 65 days to prepare the marinade, but this is unlikely for reasons of freshness and flavour.
• One account claims that the dish emerged as a simple meal solution for Indian soldiers in 1965.
• Another account claims that it is a dish containing 65 chilli peppers devised by an enterprising hotelier.
• The name is also claimed to relate to a requirement for the meat to be from 65-day-old chickens.

The truth goes this way!

• Chicken 65 is alleged to have been a meal in a military canteen in a largely vegetarian city in South India. When the army men wanted meat they ordered item number 65 on the menu instead of chicken fry. The menu card had blank numbers 64 and 65 to avoid inciting the largely vegetarian local population. 64 was mutton/goat meat and 65 was chicken. This military canteen preparation was the famous chicken 65.Another variation of this story states that since the menu was in Tamil and chicken ("kozhi fry") was written in Tamil the army men would just order item number 65 in order to get around the language barrier.
• Because of India's large number of chicken preparations, each preparation was given a number instead of an independent name. Chicken 65 came about as part of this numbering system.