Mr Aslam with his Signature Dish in 2009 (Image credit: AFP)
Glasgow chef Ali Ahmed Aslam, credited with inventing chicken tikka masala, has died aged 77.
Ali Ahmed Aslam’s death was announced by his Shish Mahal restaurant in Glasgow, which was closed for 48 hours out of respect, The Guardian reported. The restaurant announced, “Hey Shish Snobs… Mr Ali passed away this morning… We are all absolutely devastated and heartbroken.”
He invented the dish by improvising a sauce from a can of tomato soup at his Shish Mahal restaurant in the 1970s and died on Monday morning, his nephew Andleeb Ahmed told AFP.
“He ate lunch at his restaurant every day,” Ahmed said.
“The restaurant was his life. The cooks made curry for him. I’m not sure if he ate chicken tikka masala that often.”
Ahmed said his uncle is a perfectionist and very ambitious.
“Last year he was not well and I visited him in the hospital on Christmas Day,” said Ahmed.
“His head was slumped. I stayed ten minutes. Before I left he lifted his head and said you should be at work.”
In an interview with AFP in 2009, Ali said he developed the recipe for chicken tikka masala after a customer complained that his chicken tikka was too dry.
“Chicken tikka masala was invented at this restaurant, we used to make chicken tikka, and one day a customer said, ‘I’d put some sauce on it, it’s a bit dry,'” Ali said.
“We thought we’d better cook the chicken with some gravy. So from here we made chicken tikka with a sauce that included yogurt, cream and spices.”
The dish became the most popular dish in British restaurants.
Although it is difficult to definitively prove the dish’s provenance, it is widely regarded as a curry adapted to Western tastes.
Ali said the chicken tikka masala is made to order.
“They don’t usually take a spicy curry, so we cook it with yoghurt and cream,” he said.
Supporters of the campaign to give the dish protected status point out that former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook once described it as an integral part of British culture.
“Chicken tikka masala is now a truly British national dish, not just because it’s the most popular, but because it’s a perfect example of Britain absorbing and adapting to outside influences,” Cook said in a 2001 speech on British identity.
Originally from the Punjab province of Pakistan, Ali moved to Glasgow with his family as a young boy before opening the Shish Mahal in Glasgow’s West End in 1964.
He said he wanted the dish to be a gift to Glasgow to give back to his adopted homeland.
In 2009, he unsuccessfully campaigned for the dish to be given “Protected Designation of Origin” status by the European Union, alongside champagne, Parma ham and Greek feta cheese.
MP Mohammad Sarwar tabled a motion in the House of Commons in 2009 calling for EU protection.
Ali leaves behind a wife, three sons and two daughters.
Featured Video of the Day
Covid surge in China, alarm in India: time to dress up again?