Chicken Tikka Masala
When a customer at the Shish Mahal restaurant in 1970s Glasgow complained about his chicken tikka being too dry, chef Ali Ahmed quickly rustled up a sauce of Campbell’s condensed tomato soup mixed with yogurt and spices to pour over it.
It proved such a hit, the diner and his friends returned time after time for the taste sensation, word spread and chicken tikka masala began to appear on curry house menus across the country. In 2001 the then British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook hailed chicken tikka masala as a symbol of modern multicultural Britain, saying: “Chicken tikka is an Indian dish. The masala sauce was added to satisfy the desire of British people to have their meat served in gravy.”
It is still widely considered to be Britain’s national dish. shishmahal.co.uk