Easy Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken tikka masala is simultaneously one of the most British and one of the most Indian dishes in the world, and its origin is genuinely disputed. The most credible account — supported by the family of Ali Ahmed Aslam, who operated the Shish Mahal restaurant in Glasgow from 1964 — holds that the dish was created in 1971 when a customer complained that his chicken tikka was too dry and asked for a sauce. Aslam, improvising, opened a can of Campbell's tomato soup, mixed it with yogurt and spices, and poured it over the chicken. The British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook declared in 2001 that chicken tikka masala was Britain's true national dish — a statement that caused considerable discussion in India, where tikka masala was largely unknown at the time. It is, Cook argued, a perfect symbol of modern Britain: an Indian dish adapted by Pakistani immigrants in a Scottish city using an American canned soup, which has since been reverse-exported to India where it is now served in restaurants in Mumbai and Delhi as an example of exotic British cuisine. This version uses actual tomatoes rather than Campbell's soup, which may make it less historically authentic but is generally considered an improvement.