Partition Legacy · Char-Charred Chicken
Tandoori Chicken
Photo: pelican / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
The dish was invented by a Peshawar restaurateur, Kundan Lal Gujral, who fled to Delhi during Partition in 1947 and brought his tandoor recipes with him — soon after, a cabinet minister introduced the dish to Jawaharlal Nehru himself, and Moti Mahal's catering became a fixture of Nehru's official banquets.
Chicken is slashed to the bone, marinated in yogurt and spices, and skewered vertically into a clay tandoor where it chars over live coals in minutes. It's a fixture of Punjabi dhabas and roadside grills, served with a squeeze of lime and sliced onion.
Why it's made this way: Refugee restaurateurs from Punjab's Peshawar-based tandoor tradition carried the technique to Delhi after 1947, and the dish became inseparable from Punjabi cuisine's tandoor-first identity, still cooked the same way at dhabas across the region today.
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