With a bucketload of Michelin stars under his belt, Gordon Ramsay is a highly accomplished chef, at least when it comes to French and British cuisine. But what about a classic Indian curry? Maybe not — judging by fan reactions to one Ramsay recipe.
In early 2024, Ramsay posted an Instagram reel showing off his recipe for a speedy butter chicken, one of his favorite iconic dishes. After sautéing some onions, garlic, cilantro stems, and chili, Ramsay adds some tomato sauce — and in the UK, “tomato sauce” doesn’t only refer to a classic marinara consisting mostly of crushed tomatoes, it’s another name for ketchup. If you look closely at the video, Ramsay puts in a shiny condiment that looks closer to ketchup than marinara.
Criticism in The Times of India said Ramsay could hardly call this dish butter chicken. The comments on Instagram are at best mixed, with plenty of declarations (and varying levels of profanity) that this dish is not butter chicken. It’s not the first time Ramsay has taken liberties with Asian cuisines. His large stable of restaurants features several “Asian-inspired” restaurants called Lucky Cat. When the first one opened in 2019, it was billed as a Japanese-leaning restaurant, but received criticism for mediocre dishes that drew on a mishmash of cuisines while claiming to be authentic.
What belongs in butter chicken?
Tatiana Volgutova/Shutterstock
Despite the criticism, Gordon Ramsay’s butter chicken recipe isn’t totally off the mark. Some well-rated recipes from Indian chefs do call for tomato to go in the sauce, where Ramsay puts in the ketchup. But these call for either fresh or canned tomatoes, tomato paste, or some combination of the two. If you want to use British-style ketchup, you’re adding hints of sugar and vinegar. Most recipes don’t call for vinegar, but some do include a little sugar. However, the volume of ketchup Ramsay puts into his curry is well beyond the teaspoon that is usually called for. Assuming he was talking about tomato sauce, not ketchup, you would be adding crushed tomatoes and herbs like oregano or basil that also typically appear in butter chicken recipes.
Still, Ramsay does get other ingredients right. His marinade of salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin, coriander, garam masala, yogurt, oil, and cayenne compares closely to other recipes – although some do include fenugreek and Kashmiri chili powder instead of cayenne. His other sauce ingredients mostly line up with well-reviewed recipes, but he skips the cashews that some cooks use to blend into a gravy. So while Ramsay didn’t get butter chicken entirely wrong, his one liberty — using ketchup — was perhaps a step too far for many.
