How the world's first tandoori chicken was cooked

BBC's Harappan brinjal curry brings to mind a bunch of grumpy children being told: eat your "vartaka" or you will get it for breakfast tomorrow. Little Dennis the Menace suffered likewise with carrots, for moms the world over have used the same set of dialogue down the ages.

The world's oldest curry flavoured with ginger, turmeric and salt lends its ingredients seamlessly to a tandoori chicken and roti dish. That would explain the sulks. After all, why was dad outside, hunched over his clay oven with a bunch of friends?

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Circular ovens dot the Indus Valley sites. The ones in Mohenjodaro, Chanhudaro and Lothal are massive with firing sections placed below the ground. Once the bricks and glazed clay bowls had been done to perfection, the workers could have easily slapped some quickly kneaded dough on to the sides of the oven walls and plunged a skewered chicken into the fiery interiors.

Smaller mud-plastered ovens with a side opening, like the ones found at Kalibangan, were easier and safer to use. Here a woman could, quite as easily, whip up a quick treat for her little ones: thick crisp rotis.

It is disappointing that the pots at Rakhigarhi yielded only vegetable remains but using Sherlock Holmes' "vital clue of omission" it can be proved that the bowls of curried chicken, fish and meat had been licked clean.

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Sadly, one omission can be explained away but two become statistically significant. Amongst the rich haul of bones - cattle, sheep, turtles, tortoises, gharials and river and sea fish that bear testimony to the non-vegetarian habits of the Harappans, the remains of domesticated chicken are few.

The ban on eating the village cock, which was put down in writing centuries later in the book of law - Manusmriti, appears to have been taken to heart. It was not as if the Harappans were unware of its existence for gallus gallus, the Indian jungle fowl, is the ancestor of all chickens in the world. Manu permitted the eating of jungle fowl but not its domesticated cousin.

Domestication of chicken was achieved by those who lived outside the Harappan cities, possibly along the Gangetic plains. And the Harappans were only too familiar with it. Even though they did not eat it they saw no reason to not reap a profit.

Business is after all business. Cargoloads of domesticated chicken were shipped out from the port at Lothal in Gujarat making their way to Mesopotamia. From the mounds of chicken bones found around the dockyard one can suppose that a processing plant operated at the site with workers plucking, deboning and preserving the flesh (pickling perhaps), getting it ready for the long journey ahead.

By 2000 BC, the people of the land between the two rivers (modern Iraq and Syria) were tucking into chicken shawarmas until now stuffed with, I presume, shredded cabbage and lettuce. In their cuneiform lettering carved into stone they paid homage to the "royal bird of Meluha", Meluha being their name for the Indus Valley.

Poultry entered China around 1500 BC and Europe after 600 BC. Curry and tandoori, therefore, predate the stir-fries, chilly chickens and roasts.

The common Harappan grains were wheat and barley with rice becoming the staple after 1300 BC. The pairing of rice with curry was therefore a later development as was the creation of chicken (wild jungle fowl) pulao or biryani.

A possible Harappan recipe would be: chicken (if it is wild fowl so much the better but keep an eye out for the law) marinated in creamy full fat milk with a teaspoonful of grated ginger and about the same amount of grated fresh turmeric root, and seasoned with salt.

Allow the chicken to imbue the flavours for a couple of hours and then skewer and plunge it into a hot tandoor. The skin should sizzle and crisp up providing an instant seal. The trapped fat and juices will then bubble through the flesh leaving it tender and moist.

Enjoy with flat tandoori barley or wheat rotis.