Food - Drink
So, What’s The Difference Between Butter Chicken And Tikka Masala?
By ANDREW BUI
While Indian cuisine comprises an abundance of dishes, it’s hard to overlook two favorites that are seen on nearly every Indian restaurant’s menu — butter chicken and chicken tikka masala. Both dishes flaunt a creamy texture, smoky flavor, and happy orange tinge, but what’s the difference between the two?
Butter chicken, or murgh makhani, is an authentic Indian dish created by Kundan Lal Gujral in 1948 at his legendary Delhi restaurant, Moti Mahal. Gujral needed a way to use up another popular creation of his — tandoori chicken — so he stewed the already-cooked meat in a gravy of tomatoes, aromatic spices, and butter.
Chicken tikka masala, on the other hand, was invented in the 1960s in the UK — it tastes similar to butter chicken, but it’s a quintessentially British dish with its own unique blend of spices. The two have been confused for so long thanks to low-quality Indian restaurants that haven’t differentiated between them.