Dondero: No buffalo in these coconut chicken wings

Chicken wings were popular in Asia well before 1964. That's the year an Italian-American tavern owner in Buffalo, N.Y., made culinary history.

Needing a snack for her son and his friends, Teressa Bellissimo deep-fried some chicken wings from the tavern's fridge, sloshed them with butter and hot pepper sauce, countered the heat with celery and blue cheese dressing she had on hand for salads, and Voila!

But the spicy chicken wing treats I'm writing about have no buffalo connection - although in India, where this type of dry-fried "curry" originated, there are, in fact, many buffalo. Those buffalo are big and clumsy, have crumpled horns and produce rich milk that's made into wonderful yogurt, clarified butter and ice cream.

I was fortunate when we lived in Malaysia in the early '70s to experience, among other delights, spicy South Indian fried meats. Those ethnic treats, small pieces of chicken or lamb, were found at remarkably inexpensive, if somewhat ramshackle, restaurants run by old cooks who had emigrated from India during the colonial period. These subregional specialties don't show up in cookbooks, Indian or Malaysian, as far as I can find.

There were tangy, snack-like pieces of chicken, including wings, that were fried with coconut and whole spices. I associate them particularly with Indian Muslim cooks originally from the Malabar Coast. Similar chicken as well as lamb treats, without the coconut, but using curry leaves, were made by Hindu cooks from Tamil Nadu. The spicy morsels were served at room temperature as appetizers or as side dishes in South Indian rice-based dinners.

The original Malabari chicken would have been seasoned with freshly grated coconut that was slowly toasted on a dry pan. But dry unsweetened coconut, available at natural food stores as well as at Indo-Pak

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