Man who ‘invented’ the chicken tikka masala dies aged 77

Known to friends and customers as ‘Mr Ali’ he was born in Pakistan but moved with his family to Glasgow as a young boy before opening Shish Mahal in Glasgow’s west end in 1964.

In an interview with the AFP news agency, Aslam explained that he created the chicken tikka masala in the 1970s when a customer asked if there was a way of making his chicken tikka less dry. His solution was to add a creamy tomato sauce.

He said: “Chicken tikka masala was invented in this restaurant. We used to make chicken tikka, and one day a customer said, ‘I’d take some sauce with that, this is a bit dry.’

“We thought we’d better cook the chicken with some sauce. So from here we cooked chicken tikka with the sauce that contains yoghurt, cream, spices. It’s a dish prepared according to our customer’s taste. Usually they don’t take hot curry – that’s why we cook it with yoghurt and cream.”

In 2009, the-then Labour MP for Glasgow Central, Mohammad Sarwar, called for the city to be officially recognised as the home of the chicken tikka masala.

He campaigned for Glasgow to be given EU Protected Designation of Origin status for the curry and tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons.

In the end, the bid was unsuccessful, with a number of other establishments around the UK also claim to have invented the popular dish.

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