Kundan Lal Jaggi

Kundan Lal Jaggi (10 September 1924 – 4 March 2018) was an Indian chef and restaurateur based in New Delhi. Kundan Lal Jaggi is the inventor of butter chicken, dal makhani, paneer makhani and the founder of the Moti Mahal restaurant along with his partners Kundan Lal Gujral and Thakur Das Magu in 1947 in Daryaganj, Delhi.

Early life

Kundan Lal Jaggi was born in Peshawar Jaggi added this recipe to the menu under the name Butter Chicken.

Dal makhani Based on feedback from customers, Kundan Lal Jaggi experimented and created a new recipe using ‘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 flavorful dal with a creamy consistency. He named it the Dal Makhani (meaning buttery in Hindi) as a vegetarian counterpart to Butter Chicken.

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 served 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.

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.