Chicken tikka masala inventor, Ali Ahmed Aslam, dies at 77

• Glasgow’s Shish Mahal was closed for 48 hours in respect.
• The restaurant yelled, Hey, Shish Snobs! He died this morning.
• Tuesday’s funeral was at Glasgow Central Mosque.

The 77-year-old chef who is credited with creating the chicken tikka masala, widely considered as Britain‘s favorite curry, has passed away.

After learning of Ali Ahmed Aslam’s passing on Monday, Glasgow’s Shish Mahal restaurant remained closed for 48 hours as a gesture of respect.

The restaurant yelled, “Hey, Shish Snobs… He died this morning, Mr. Ali. We are all heartbroken and completely upset.

The Glasgow Central Mosque hosted his funeral on Tuesday. The whole public was welcome to attend.

Aslam was born in Pakistan and immigrated to Glasgow with his family when he was a small child. In 1964, he opened the Shish Mahal in Glasgow’s west end.

A social media post claimed that he was married and that he has five kids.

He said: “Chicken tikka masala was invented in this restaurant. We used to make chicken tikka, and one day a customer said, ‘I’d take some sauce with that, this is a bit dry.’

“We thought we’d better cook the chicken with some sauce. So from here we cooked chicken tikka with the sauce that contains yoghurt, cream, spices. It’s a dish prepared according to our customer’s taste. Usually they don’t take hot curry – that’s why we cook it with yoghurt and cream.”

Mohammad Sarwar, a Labor politician representing Glasgow Central at the time, asked for the designation of the city as the origin of the chicken tikka masala in 2009.

He introduced an early day resolution in the House of Commons to support his effort for Glasgow to be granted EU Protected Designation of Origin status for the curry.

The attempt, however, was unsuccessful since a number of other eateries in the UK also asserted that they had created the well-known dish.

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