Tandoori chicken is chicken marinated in yogurt and a blend of spices, traditionally including red chili, ginger, garlic and garam masala, then roasted in a tandoor, a cylindrical clay oven fired with charcoal or wood at very high heat. The specific dish is a twentieth century invention credited to Kundan Lal Gujral, who ran the restaurant Moti Mahal in Peshawar beginning around 1920 and developed the marinated, tandoor-roasted preparation there in the 1920s and 1930s, partly as a way to use chicken that had not sold by the end of the day. Gujral relocated to Delhi after the 1947 partition of India and reopened Moti Mahal there, where the dish, along with his butter chicken and dal makhani, became popular with the capital's elite, reportedly including Jawaharlal Nehru. The tandoor oven itself is far older, with clay ovens and charred bones consistent with tandoor-style cooking found at Indus Valley Civilization sites dating back to roughly 3000 BCE, but that antiquity belongs to the oven, not to this specific marinated dish.
Facts
Origin Period, From (Year)Sourced to the subject's own accountMarks the late 1940s popularization of tandoori chicken at Delhi's Moti Mahal restaurant by Punjabi migrants from Peshawar, after partition; the dish itself is older in the Punjab, undated precisely. Origin RegionSourced to the subject's own accountPunjab, Indian subcontinent; modern form popularized in New Delhi 2 Origin Period, To (Year)Sourced to the subject's own accountMarks the documented arrival of the dish in the international mainstream: a tandoori chicken recipe ran in the Los Angeles Times in 1963, with a similar recipe repeated in 1964, by which point the dish invented in Punjab and popularized at the Delhi Moti Mahal restaurant in the late 1940s had reached Western newspaper food pages. Classification
Dietary SuitabilityContains Meat or Poultry 1 Connections
Associated With
In Cuisine
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Uses Ingredient
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Source The Oxford Companion to FoodAlan Davidson
Sources
1. The Oxford Companion to Food
Alan Davidson, Oxford University Press, 2014entity record, Name (dietary-suitability)
Name: Tandoori Chicken
- In Cuisine: Indian Cuisine
- Uses Ingredient: Chili Pepper
- Uses Ingredient: Garlic
- Uses Ingredient: Ginger
2. Tandoori Chicken (Wikipedia)
WikipediaIntroduction
Tandoori chicken is a dish made from chicken marinated in yogurt and spices and roasted in a tandoor, a cylindrical clay oven.
History
Tandoori chicken as a dish originated in the Punjab before the independence of partition of India.
History, 1963 Los Angeles Times recipe
A recipe for tandoori chicken was printed in the Los Angeles Times in 1963, for "the hostess in search of a fresh idea for a party dinner"; a similar recipe was featured in the same newspaper in 1964.
View the Source Tandoori (Wiktionary)
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