Who Invented Indian Butter Chicken? (Encore)
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Thanks for listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. Butter chicken. In the West, it is the star of Indian takeout. In India, it's like hamburgers in America, a household dish that's also well-traveled. But who gets to claim they invented butter chicken?

That question is complicated, and it's tied up in the history of India itself. It's also the subject of a lawsuit before a high court in New Delhi. NPR's Dia Hadid attempts to get to the bottom of butter chicken's origin. Butter chicken is a smoky, tandoor-roasted bird doused in a buttery tomato sauce, mopped up with crusty naan bread. Butter chicken!

But it's so much more. In India, the words can be a saucy wink. It's the go-to of countless YouTube cooks. Hi guys, welcome to Get Curried. What I bring to your kitchen today is butter chicken. It's shorthand for a culinary hug, and the dish is woven into the story of modern India, created in the partition of South Asia in 1947.

Independence came amid a frenzy of communal violence. Millions of Muslims fled to Pakistan, Sikhs and Hindus to India. They included Kundalal Jaggi and Kundalal Gujral, two men who shared the same first name, the same profession, cooks, and the same hometown, Peshawar, in what became Pakistan.

And after the two arrived in New Delhi, they shared a restaurant too, Motimahal. They served dishes that were new to locals, like butter chicken. It tasted creamy, melty and delicious. You break your naan, you break a piece of butter chicken and then you bite into a piece of that pickled onion and it was really heaven. That celebrated chef and actress, Mantor Jaffrey.

She grew up in Delhi and used to eat at Motimahal. It didn't have an Indian taste that I knew. And that's why we loved it, because it was like nothing we'd had before. So they became the most successful restaurant in India that time. Amit Bhaga co-owns an Indian butter chicken franchise with Jaggi's grandson, and he's familiar with the Motimahal origin story. He says the place was boosted by some serious star power. They had a guest who...

Mr Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India. Nehru even invited state guests there. Richard Nixon, Jacqueline Kennedy, top people used to come there. All of them used to try the same food, butter chicken, tandoori chicken. The two original cooks, Gujral and Jaggi, sold the restaurant in the 90s. Soon after, the Gujral family created their own butter chicken spin-off franchise.

Outside one of their outlets in New Delhi, a sign claims Gajral invented butter chicken. Inside, we're served butter chicken that's as heavy as the red velvet decor, the way many here like it. A few years back, serious competition emerged. Amit Bhadgar opened a butter chicken franchise with the grandson of Jaggi. Outside one of their outlets in New Delhi, a sign proclaims Jaggi invented butter chicken.

But this only became a fight after Jaggi's grandson repeated that claim on a popular TV show last year. And Tundan Lal Jaggi, the man who invented butter chicken, he said his grandfather whipped up a sauce of butter and tomato to stretch out a few pieces of tandoori chicken to serve a flurry of guests who came into the restaurant one night.

A few months later in January, the Gajrals filed a lawsuit that was 2,752 pages long. Manish is the grandson of Kundalal Gajral, that other cook.

He says his grandfather, Gujral, concocted the creamy sauce as a way to sell leftover cooked chicken. And this is key. He says his grandfather, Gujral, created the dish way before he ever came to India.

He says he created butter chicken before partition in a restaurant he used to run in Peshawar, now in northwest Pakistan. It was also called moti mahal.

So I asked a reporter in Peshawar to see if anyone could remember the place. And they did, like Iqbal Arif. Arif says his father told him a man called Kundal Lal worked in a place called Motimahal in Peshawar. He was famous for serving chicken in a buttery sauce. The problem is, Kundal Lal is the first name of both the cooks.

And there's another twist. Both the Kundalals, Gujral and Jaggi, had earlier worked for another man in Peshawar. His name was Mukhi Singh. And some of the residents said the man who made butter chicken in Peshawar was called Kundalal Singh. That's a mishmash of all their names. So what's going on here? Pushpesh Pant is an Indian food historian. Who invented the butter chicken?

It's like saying that who discovered fire? But I wanted to dig deeper because I used to live in Pakistan and Peshawar is famous for juicy grilled meat, not creamy sauces. And butter chicken isn't even a thing in Pakistan. It is not enjoyed so widely in what is Pakistan today. Niloufar Afridi Qazi documents Pakistani food traditions. She says...

Butter chicken could have been invented in Peshawar before partition when the British had a large garrison there because it lay on the empire's northwest border. Motimahal was located in that garrison. So was the place of Mukhi Singh. So butter chicken, that iconic Indian dish, was it created for British soldiers to play to British tastes?

This is Pant, the food critic. It is essentially a non-Indian dish. Satin, smooth, butter-laden gravy, boneless chicken. This is the lowest common denominator for a non-Indian palate. But if the dish was created in Peshawar, it didn't leave a trace. Perhaps because of partition, when Hindus and Sikhs emptied out of the city and took their food traditions with them. Maybe even butter chicken.

Regardless of where and who created it, what butter chicken became is spectacular. Embraced by the first Indian prime minister as a culinary talisman of his new country, one of India's most famous dishes abroad, maybe it's worth fighting to own that legacy, even if it is ultimately unknowable. It's in Piers Diyahadid in New Delhi.

At NPR.org, you can find Madhur Jaffrey's recipe for butter chicken, and we'll link to it in our show notes. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening. See you again soon.

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