The birth of butter chicken, invented to feed a busload of refugees
- A dish so ubiquitous on menus people mistake it for a Western invention, butter chicken is as authentically Indian as Indian food gets, inventor’s grandson says
- It was created by chance at a restaurant in Delhi owned by three Punjabi Hindu refugees, when a big group arrived late for a meal and the chefs had to improvise
Few people, when tucking into a serving of butter chicken, would think about the history of the Indian dish. For Raghav Jaggi, however, this aromatic staple is more than a taste of home – it’s his family’s legacy.
His grandfather, Kundan Lal Jaggi, dedicated his life to tandoori cuisine and is one of three Punjabi Hindu refugees celebrated for inventing butter chicken.
Few other dishes can evoke such a passionate and varied response from diners but, whether it’s religiously ordered or desperately avoided, there’s no denying the dish has helped popularise Indian cuisine globally.
“Butter chicken is a lifestyle,” Jaggi, 39, says with a chuckle, from his home in New York.
“Butter chicken is a very critical and important part of the Indian culinary journey,” Jaggi says. “If you really look at Indian food and how popular it is in the world, some of the creations that my grandfather made in his kitchen are the reason Indian food is so popular.”
