Chicken Tikka Masala

01 / ABOUT THE DISH

About the dish

Chicken tikka masala is a British dish influeneced by Indian cuisine, consisting of marinated, tandoor-cooked chicken pieces that are served in a spiced tomato-cream sauce. The origins are still debated – some claim that it was invented in Glasgow in the 1970s by a Pakistani chef Ali Ahmed Aslam who added his tomato-cream soup into chicken tikka in order to please a customer, and others claim that the dish is simply a variation on Indian butter chicken or chicken tikka that's adapted to suit the British tastes. Nowadays, chicken tikka masala is even considered the country's national dish, and Foreign Secretary Robin Cook proclaimed chicken tikka masala a symbol of modern multicultural Britain in 2001.