Tandoori Chicken Recipe Many enjoy the smoky chicken, also known as tandoori chicken in India, which comes draped in a delicious sauce that is not too spicy even for the western taste buds. The dish is so popular that you can find innumerable restaurants in the UK and Asia serving this dish. It can be credited for making Indian cuisine popular internationally. Although it is enjoyed by many, very few know about the origin of this dish. This article traces the origin of tandoori chicken in India.
How Did The Dish Derive Its Name? In the present day, there are so many grilling techniques and methods, but you would be surprised to know that people of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa civilizations have been grilling food even before the term ‘grill’ was coined. They used a clay oven which had a cylindrical shape to grill naan or chicken, and the oven was known as tandoor. The tandoori chicken recipe derived its name from the oven it was grilled in. A tandoor was present in almost every house at those times. The clay oven worked like a grilled oven present today. How did the tandoor originate? That is a different story for another day. Charcoal and woods were used to produce the fire within the oven. The structure of the oven was such that it could trap that heat inside which could then be used for grilling food without burning it. The temperature inside the oven could get very hot; at times, it could even reach 480° Celsius. This clay oven can still be found in many homes in villages all over India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It is widely used in the rural areas of the country, for it does not require gas, since it makes use of charcoal and wood. Coming To The Dish Itself The dish was born in a food joint in Peshawar, now in Pakistan. The restaurant was owned by Mokha Singh Lamba. He employed Kundan Lal Gujral to work at his restaurant. He was in charge of cooking, and he used the tandoor to create a dish which is now known worldwide as tandoori chicken. The dish quickly became popular in Peshawar, but the country was facing political unrest at that time. Soon the nation was divided in 1947, and Kundan Lal Gujral, like many other Hindus, had to escape from the newly established nation, Pakistan to his country India. He found himself penniless on the streets of Delhi and decided to recreate the popularity of his dish and established his own restaurant, the now famous, Moti Mahal. The restaurant soon started serving other specialties like dal makhani and butter chicken. Over the years, the dish created by Kundan Lal Gujral had many variations. Different tandoori chicken recipes were invented, popularized, and equally loved by the Indians.
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