Chicken tikka masala creator Ali Ahmed Aslam passes away at age 77.

 

The chef claimed that after a customer complained that his meal was too dry, he created the recipe for "Britain's favourite curry."

The 77-year-old cook who is credited with creating the chicken tikka masala, widely considered as Britain's favourite curry, has passed away.

After learning of Ali Ahmed Aslam's passing on Monday, Glasgow's Shish Mahal restaurant remained closed for 48 hours as a gesture of respect. The restaurant yelled, "Hey, Shish Snobs... He died this morning, Mr. Ali. We are all heartbroken and completely upset.

The Glasgow Central Mosque hosted his funeral on Tuesday. The whole public was welcome to attend.

Aslam was born in Pakistan and immigrated to Glasgow with his family when he was a small child. In 1964, he opened the Shish Mahal in Glasgow's west end. A social media post claimed that he was married and that he has five kids.

Aslam revealed that he invented the chicken tikka masala in the 1970s in response to a customer's request for a method of making his chicken tikka less dry in an interview with the AFP news agency. He decided to add a rich tomato sauce as a fix.

"This restaurant developed chicken tikka masala," he declared. When we used to serve chicken tikka, a customer once requested sauce because the dish was a little dry.

"We decided it would be best to cook the chicken with sauce. So from this point, we prepared chicken tikka with a sauce made of yoghurt, cream, and spices. It's a dish that was made with our customers' preferences in mind. Since people typically dislike hot curries, we prepare it with yoghurt and cream.

Mohammad Sarwar, a Labour politician representing Glasgow Central at the time, asked for the designation of the city as the origin of the chicken tikka masala in 2009. He introduced an early day resolution in the House of Commons to support his effort for Glasgow to be granted EU Protected Designation of Origin status for the curry.

The attempt, however, was unsuccessful since a number of other eateries in the UK also asserted that they had created the well-known dish.

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