In Search Of Lost Butter Chicken

A writer looks high and low across the globe for the perfect iteration of the Punjabi classic, hoping to relive memories of her beloved grandparent

- Sukhada Tatke

Soon after the Indo-Pak Partition, a young Punjabi Hinduman from Peshawar sought refuge on the other side of the border. In the Daryaganj locality of Delhi, Kundan LalGujral opened Moti Mahal, a restaurant that had been a popular eatery in his hometown. As the story goes, he conducted an experiment to save leftover pieces of dried tandoori chicken by cooking them in a creamy tomato gravy. And with this, the provenance of butter chicken or murgh makhani became a delicious episode in India’s culinary history.

Around the same time, another young man left his home in Satara, Maharashtra, to make the journey to Bombay. For him too, it was a time of experimentation. With the freedom of travel that an engineering degree accorded him, came a delectable curiosity for food beyond the realm of the vegetarian diet on which he had been raised. The headiness of city life held sway over him as he sallied forth into a world full of crustaceans, birds and animals to be discovered. Fish and shrimps were consumed with equal fervour as were chicken and mutton.

Later this man, my grandfather, married a girl named Sindhu, the only one who would cling to her steadfast commitment to vegetarianism to the end, even as one child after another inherited her husband’s carnivorous habits. It wasn’t until the 1980s that my grandfather chanced upon his true gastronomic love—butter chicken—and passed it down generations.

He bore a fine personality, my grandfather: perfectly-dyed black hair, a loud voice behoving the raconteur that he was and the magician that he was. He adored his daily peg of whisky like he adored his food.

For me on the other hand, mealtime was at best a chore that needed to be done away with. I was often the one idling away at the dining table long after everyone else had lapped up the last remnants of food from their fingers and dispersed.