As a leader at Standard Insurance Company for more than a decade, Graeme Queen has most recently served the insurance carrier as second vice president of strategic account services since 2017. When he isn’t working, he has been teaching himself to cook. One of Graeme Queen’s most successful dishes to date has been chicken tikka masala.
Composed of marinated and tandoor-cooked boneless chicken pieces in a slightly spicy tomato-cream sauce, Chicken tikka masala is popular in many places around the world. It is particularly appreciated in England, where people widely consider it to be the country’s unofficial national dish.
Although chicken tikka masala achieved widespread cultural significance in England, its precise place of origin is a subject of some debate. Many people contend that British cooks created the dish to make northern India’s popular butter chicken more palatable to Western diners. Others contend that chicken tikka masala arrived in England from its native India in, more or less, its current form. Still others track the dish back to 1970s Glasgow, Scotland, where a Bangladeshi chef is supposed to have pleased a single customer by adding sauce to his marinated tikka-spiced boneless chicken kebabs.
