A chef who is believed to have invented the chicken tikka masala, regarded as Britain’s favourite curry, has died aged 77.
Ali Ahmed Aslam’s death on Monday was announced by his Shish Mahal restaurant in Glasgow, which closed for 48 hours as a mark of respect. The eatery announced: “Hey, Shish Snobs … Mr Ali passed away this morning … We are all absolutely devastated and heartbroken.”
His funeral was held at Glasgow Central Mosque on Tuesday. Members of the public were invited to attend.
Aslam was born in Pakistan and moved with his family to Glasgow as a young boy before opening Shish Mahal in Glasgow’s west end in 1964. He was married and has five children, according to a social media post.
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, Mohammad Sarwar, then Labour MP for Glasgow Central, 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.
But the bid was unsuccessful, with a number of other establishments around the UK also claiming to have invented the popular dish.