The first British curry

ELEANOR BARNETT prepares a dish with Indian influences that was designed to appeal to Georgian English tastes

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The Indian takeaway is a ritual ingrained in British culture - so much so that chicken tikka masala is widely considered the national dish of the UK. Like much in food history, though, that recipe's origins are hotly debated. The Pakistani-Scottish chef Ali Ahmed Aslam claimed to have invented it in the 1970s when he added a tomato-and-cream sauce of gravy consistency to chicken tikka in order to please the palates of his Glaswegian customers. Whatever the truth, it is certainly not an Indian dish but something unique arising from the blending of Indian and British cuisines.

The British have been making 'curries' inspired by Indian dishes since as far back as the 17th century, when the East India Company began establishing trading posts across the subcontinent. No dish called 'curry' actually existed in India, but Company men returning home and experimenting with flavours to remind them of their travels likely coined the term based on the Tamil word