Kundan Lal Jaggi

Kundan Lal Jaggi (10th September 1924 – 4th March 2018), was a culinary legend based in New Delhi, India. Accredited with the invention of the Butter Chicken and Dal Makhani, Kundan Lal Jaggi’s story is forever etched in the annals of history[1].

Kundan Lal Jaggi
The Famous Indian Restaurateur
Born10 September 1924
Hassal, Jhelum, British India
Died04 March 2018
Delhi, India
OccupationRestaurateur

Early Life

Kundan Lal Jaggi was born to Gandamal Jaggi & Channan Devi in the then undivided Indian frontier village of Hassal, Jhelum. One of many children, Kundan Lal Jaggi left home early in life and took up work at a restaurant in the city of Peshawar.

Kundan Lal Jaggi married Swaran Devi and had five children.

Culinary Training and Career

Kundan Lal Jaggi started training under the owner of Moti Mahal restaurant, where he had joined as an apprentice and rose to become the chef over the next 12 years. His amiable personality and flair with the tandoor made him a famous name in the culinary circles of Peshawar.

Contributions To Indian Cuisine

The Partition of India in 1947 forced Kundan Lal Jaggi to make his journey from the frontier to the capital city of Delhi. In an area called Daryaganj, Jaggi found a shop and decided to open a restaurant at the premises. Along with two other friends from Peshawar, Jaggi opened the city’s first restaurant that would serve food cooked in a tandoor (a cylindrical clay oven).[1]

By Thomas Crane

Butter Chicken

One fateful evening while closing, a group of hungry refugees showed up at the restaurant. With only a few portions of tandoori chicken at his disposal, Jaggi made a gravy with tomatoes, butter, and a few spices to feed everybody. He added the cooked chicken to this gravy, giving it a unique flavor[2]. Jaggi put this invention on the menu and gave the world a new Indian delicacy, the Butter Chicken.[1][3]

Dal Makhani

Based on feedback from customers, Kundan Lal Jaggi experimented and created something exciting with the age-old ‘maa ki dal’ (black gram). He slow-cooked the dal on the tandoor overnight with a mix of tomatoes, butter, red kidney beans and a few herbs and spices. The overnight cooking produced a dal of a creamy consistency and bursting with flavor. He named it the Dal Makhani (meaning buttery in Hindi) as the perfect vegetarian counterpart to the Butter Chicken.[1][4][5]

Moti Mahal

Kundan Lal Jaggi, Kundan Lal Gujral, and Thakur Dass Mago were old friends from Peshawar who, after a chance meeting, together opened the city’s first restaurant that serves Tandoori food, called Moti Mahal in Delhi’s Daryaganj. The restaurant started with modest beginnings and soon became a culinary landmark in the city. It enjoyed the patronage of many dignitaries, both Indian and foreign, most notably Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister of the country. [1] [6][4]

Legacy

Daryaganj - By The Inventors of Butter Chicken and Dal Makhani

Though Kundan Lal Jaggi’s culinary journey ended with his demise, he bestowed his legacy on his grandson Raghav Jaggi who has created Daryaganj, a chain of restaurants in Delhi NCR. The restaurant concept has been developed keeping in mind Kundan Lal Jaggi’s immense contribution to Indian cuisine and to showcase food made with guarded age-old recipes.

Daryaganj is present across four locations in Delhi.

Awards

Kundan Lal Jaggi was awarded many accolades throughout his culinary journey, and in 2017 IFCA (The Indian Federation of Culinary Associations) conferred upon him the award of ‘Culinary Legend’ at their 7th International Chefs Conference.[7]

Honorable Mentions

“Your greatness is revealed not by the lights that shine upon you, but by the light that shines within you.” Dedication to Kundan Lal Jaggi in his obituary posted by the IFCA.

References
  1. "Partition brought Moti Mahal, a landmark in India's culinary history, to central Delhi". The Sunday Guardian Live. 15 August 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  2. "Rude Food by Vir Sanghvi: The battle of the Butter Chickens". Hindustan Times. 10 August 2019. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  3. Institute, Allspice (21 January 2020). "BUTTER CHICKEN RECIPE". allspice. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  4. "The legend of Daal Makhani". The Indian Express. 3 January 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  5. "A refugee invented butter chicken, and changed the face of Indian cuisine". South China Morning Post. 26 May 2020. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  6. "Culinary czars of North Indian cuisine". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  7. "'Vadiya Khao': Refugees taught Delhi how to eat out in style". Hindustan Times. 14 August 2017. Retrieved 18 October 2019.
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