By Ranita Ray
Tandoori chicken’s history is soaked in even more sumptuous flavours than its dazzling taste. One account links it to the India-Pakistan partition. Another legend claims it existed 3000 years ago. Let's trace tandoori chicken in the pages of history.
The Harappan civilization, which thrived around 3000 BC, created similar recipes to tandoori chicken. Harappan excavations found charred meat and furnaces that resemble Punjabi tandoors.
One account claim that Kundan Lal Gujral invented tandoori chicken in Peshawar in the 1940s, before India was split up. He was a Punjab-born Hindu in undivided India.
Kundan Lal Gujral is believed to fashion a tandoor in the middle of his eatery in Gora Bazar, Peshawar. He improvised the tandoor as tandoori chicken grew popular.
Kundan left Peshawar after the India-Pakistan partition in 1947. He fled to India following Pakistan's founding.
Kundan Lal's only asset was his tandoori chicken recipe. Thus, he opened an eatery in Delhi. He was famed for introducing tandoori chicken.
In another version, Kundan Lal Jaggi and Kundan Lal Gujral introduced tandoori chicken at their Daryagang restaurant, Moti Mahal, in the late 1940s.
The then-Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru loved the Tandoori Chicken at Moti Mahal, Daryaganj. It became integral to his official meals.
In the 1960s, US restaurants began serving tandoori chicken. On her 1962 Rome-Bombay flight, Jacqueline Kennedy ate chicken tandoori.