Oct. 11, 2021, 1:15 p.m.

Eat This Podcast: Midnight’s chicken

Eat This Newsletter

Sign above the door of the original Moti Mahal restaurant in New Delhi

Hello

After the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, a young chef brought the tandoor oven and his tandoori chicken from Peshawar to a new restaurant he opened in Delhi, the Moti Mahal. There, he created makkhani murghi, butter chicken; tandoori chicken in a sauce that combines tomatoes, butter and cream.

Seventy years later, the internet was overrun by a recipe for an “easy, authentic, creamy, spicy, and delicious” version of the “traditional Indian restaurant dish”. Urvashi Pitre, who created that recipe, shot to fame and a book deal as the Butter Chicken Lady.

The rise of the Butter Chicken Lady fascinated Sucharita Kenjilal, a PhD student at UCLA. Butter chicken is comparatively recent. Tomatoes, a key ingredient in the dish, were adopted very late in India. And the whole notion of recipes is also a relatively recent phenomenon in India. What, she wondered, could tomatoes in Indian recipes say about how new tastes are created.

Take a listen

All the best

Jeremy

You just read issue #131 of Eat This Newsletter. You can also browse the full archives of this newsletter.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share via email
Brought to you by Buttondown, the easiest way to start and grow your newsletter.