What is chicken 65 and why the number?

Chicken 65 is a South Indian fried chicken dish from Chennai. Boneless chicken is marinated in yogurt, ginger, garlic and red chili, deep-fried until crisp, then tossed in a hot tempering of curry leaves, green chili and garlic. It's served dry as a starter.

Most likely because it was introduced in 1965. The dish is credited to Buhari Hotel in Chennai, which also serves Chicken 78, Chicken 82 and Chicken 90, dishes said to have debuted in those years. That pattern makes the year explanation far more convincing than theories about 65 chilies or 65 pieces.

Yes, genuinely one of the hotter items on a standard Indian menu. Chili goes in at two stages, powder in the marinade and whole green chilies in the tempering, and because it's a dry dish there's no sauce or cream to soften it.

Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It's widely credited to Buhari Hotel, founded by A.M. Buhari, with 1965 given as the year. The account rests largely on the restaurant's own claim, as many food origin stories do.

Chicken 65 is South Indian, built on yogurt, red chili, garlic and curry leaves, and served dry and crisp. Chilli chicken is Indo-Chinese, built on soy sauce, vinegar and bell pepper, and served saucy. Curry leaves mean chicken 65; soy sauce means Indo-Chinese.

Partly from red chili powder and Kashmiri chili, which produces a deep red at very little heat. The very bright orange-red seen in many restaurants is usually food coloring, which adds nothing to the flavor. A darker, less uniform red is generally the better sign.

The vegetarian version, using cubes of fresh paneer cheese in place of chicken, prepared the same way. Gobi 65 uses cauliflower, egg 65 uses boiled eggs, and mushroom 65 and fish 65 also exist. The "65" now describes the method rather than the ingredient.

A starter, and in Chennai as much a bar snack as a restaurant dish. It's served dry with sliced onion and lemon. It can be eaten as a main with rice and a dal, and it's traditionally ordered before biryani.

The dry version is the original, crisp, tossed in the tempering, served as a starter. The gravy version, sometimes called the Hyderabadi style, adds yogurt or a thin sauce so the chicken sits in something. It's softer and tangier and works better with rice.