Chicken 65

I mostly followed the recipe on the back of the Shan packet, with some additional tips from here. Halved the recipe on the packet.

• Cube ~1 lb of chicken. I used tenders, which made it quicker to cut up.
• Whisk an egg and discard ~1/2 (full recipe calls for 1 egg). Mix in 2 tbsp lemon juice, 2.5 tbsp water
• In separate dish, mix 1.5 tbsp Shan Chicken 65 Mix and 4 tbsp all-purpose flour
• Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients making a paste. Mix cubed chicken into paste. Cover and let marinate for at least 2 hours
• At least 30 mins before cooking, pull chicken out of fridge and let sit at room temp. If you fry it straight from the fridge, the chicken goes from extremely cold to extremely hot, which doesn’t cook right and makes the oil get cold.
• Heat oil in pan over medium-high until hot. Enough oil to fry (ideally, to deep fry, but I managed to do less and just flip the chicken)
• Toss marinated chicken in cornstarch
  • Tossing didn’t quite work for me, so I mixed up with a fork. This was annoying, but the cornstarch made all the difference with making the chicken really nicely crispy.
• Fry chicken in small batches. Important not to do too much at once so the oil doesn’t get cold.
  • ~1-2 minutes on each side. Varied a lot by the piece. Should get a nice crispy texture when a side is done.
  • Tongs were helpful here. And a slotted spoon.
  • I laid a paper towel on drying rack to hold the batches I finished
• Separately heat 4.5 tbsp butter (medium heat is probably right). Add ~15 curry leaves, 1.5-2 tbsp Shan Mix, a little over 1/4 cup ketchup. Stir fry for 2 mins.
• Add 3 green chilis, coarsely chopped or sliced long-ways. Stir fry for 30 seconds.
• Add fried chicken. Stir fry for 2 mins.
• Add ~3 tbsp cream, stir fry for ~1 min and remove.
  • Recipe called for “fresh cream”. I’ve gathered that this is pretty close to “light cream” in stores. Given how little I ended up using, I think heavy cream, whipping cream, etc. would have been fine to substitute.