[Sca-cooks] Weirdly simple but confusing Indian dish...

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Hullo, the list!

As a possible extension of our Simple Pleasures thread, I thought I'd
mention our dinner last night, primarily because I had a question.

We ended up in the vicinity of the Jackson Diner last night, and
decided to have dinner there, in spite of the fact that my lady
wife's digestive difficulties can handle only the mildest of Northern
Indian dishes (and I think she may be allergic, or otherwise react,
to mustard oil).

The Jackson Diner is an interesting place: it used to be a sleazy
hole-in-the-wall coffee-shop/diner in Jackson Heights, Queens. You
know, the classic pancakes/French toast/eggs/cheeburgey cheeburgey
Pepsi Pepsi cheep cheep. At some point, they (and a good chunk of the
rest of the neighborhood) changed ownership and began catering to an
Indian immigrant clientele, which they did without major renovation,
or even changing the sign, let alone the name of the place. Within a
year they were the highest-rated Indian restaurant in New York. Yes,
morons who'd read about them in New York and Gourmet magazines, noses
in air, began arriving in droves off the 7 train from Manhattan,
whining nasally about how they wished "these people" would move their
restaurant to Manhattan (a common reaction when a Manhattanite
discovers anything in the outer boroughs they consider worthwhile).
They did open two restaurants in Manhattan, actually, which were not
especially outstanding.

Well, anyway, this was some years ago, and since then the Jackson
Diner has moved to a larger building, isn't quite as
good/cutting-edge as it used to be, but still quite presentable and
reasonably priced. (And no longer infested with people who talk like
Jim Backus.)

Anyway, we went there last night; we were within 100 yards of it anyway.

In addition to the fairly standard stuff: a lamb kurma curry, a
shrimp masala, a Tandoori mixed grill for the kid <sigh>, aloe
paratha and later, nan, we had an appetizer I'd never encountered
before. It was called Malabar Chicken, but unlike the four billion
Malabar chicken recipes all over the Web and elsewhere, it was not a
chicken curry with coconut milk. This was a lightly-spiced series of
pounded chicken cutlets, dipped in a coconut-cream egg wash, coated
with shredded coconut, and sauteed. Served very simply with mango
chutney. It was a simple, but very good, dish, but I found it hard to
imagine there wasn't, to put it gently, a heavy Western influence.

Has anybody encountered this one?

Adamantius