Dishoom: The first ever cookbook from the much-loved Indian restaurant

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More than likely, you will eventually arrive at your destination. If you’re coming to south Bombay, you will probably travel past high-rises, permanent makeshift slums, crumbling old houses, a brand new sea-link flyover and an Aston Martin dealership, to arrive somewhere near the bottom of the pendant of reclaimed land that is the city. Add the tomatoes, salt and chilli powder to the pan. Bring to a rapid simmer and cook until reduced by half, stirring regularly so it doesn’t catch – this should take about 30 minutes. Add the butter and simmer for a further five minutes. Add the garam masala, sugar, honey, cumin, crisp garlic, kasoori methi powder and dill fronds, and cook for a further 15 minutes. Add the cream and simmer gently for five minutes. The sauce is now ready to use. Warm a dry frying pan over a high heat and add the pumpkin seeds. Toast for two minutes, or until golden brown, shaking the pan to keep the seeds moving so they don’t burn. Add the sesame seeds and toast for a further minute, then remove from the pan and set aside. Put the sprouted grains into a bowl and pour on boiling water to cover. Tip straight into a sieve to drain, and refresh under cold running water. Shake dry and set aside.

First make the makhani sauce. Peel and finely dice 15g of the garlic. Warm a large saucepan over a medium-high heat and add the oil. Toss in the chopped garlic and fry until light golden brown and slightly crisp – about seven to eight minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. As soon as you walk through the front door of any one of their eight restaurants, you just get it. What is ‘it’ exactly? It’s that warm feeling where you know you’re experiencing something authentic and genuine and that you’re in for a completely unique dining adventure. The service is warm and friendly, the smells are enchanting and you could easily spend an entire meal sat in silence, just gazing upon the décor. Dishoom menu highlights For me, the Irani cafés are a significant part of this seduction. Once liberally sprinkled across the city, only twenty-five or so remain, all of them old, comfortable and worn. All who know them well seem to have fond memories of them – as places for bunking off school, or debating politics and philosophy with the idealistic energy of youth, or for escaping, deeply, into a book, all accompanied by chai. The Irani cafés were places for growing up, and for growing old, whoever you were. These shared spaces and this cosmopolitan culture were extremely valuable. Shared spaces beget shared experiences and shared experiences mean that people are more likely to tolerate each other’s differences, less likely to hate and less likely to explode into violence towards one another.The gram flour is for making your own bhajis, and dishes such as sweet laddoo or dumplings. Meanwhile, the tamarind pulp is fantastic for creating a distinctive sweet, tangy flavour in recipes such as the creamy yoghurt Dahi Bhalla Chaat. This sweet and spicy take on chai makes a wonderful alternative to your run-of-the-mill cuppa. It’s best served piping hot – just make sure you’ve got a pot nearby for refills. So this book is a total delight. The photography, the recipes and above all, the stories. I’ve never read a book that has made me look so longingly at my suitcase.” – Nigel Slater Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we hope you will be replete with recipes and stories to share with all who come to your table. There is nothing that we love more than feeding you all in our restaurants, and we are extremely happy to be sharing our Dishoom recipes, so that you can cook them in your own kitchen.

As you learn to cook the comforting Dishoom menu at home, you will also be taken on a day-long tour of south Bombay, peppered with much eating and drinking. You'll discover the simple joy of early chai and omelette at Kyani and Co., of dawdling in Horniman Circle on a lazy morning, of eating your fill on Mohammed Ali Road, of strolling on the sands at Chowpatty at sunset or taking the air at Nariman Point at night. A simple side dish with outstanding results. Adjust the spices to suit your own palate and serve as part of an Indian-inspired feast. You can also make Dishoom’s special masala spice mix here.Toast the bread until very lightly browned on both sides. Set aside to cool slightly while you prepare the topping. Put a small handful of the grated cheese (roughly 10g), 1 tsp chopped spring onion and a pinch of green chilli to one side, to be used when you fry the egg(s). Let the grated cheese come up to room temperature; it needs to be quite soft and workable. Heat the oven to 240°C/Fan 220°C/Gas 9. Place a baking tray inside to warm up. First, soak the rice. Put the rice into a large bowl and cover generously with water. Using your fingers, gently move the rice around in the water to remove the starch, being careful not to break up the grains. Let the rice settle, then pour off the water. Repeat twice more, each time with fresh water, then cover again with fresh water and leave to soak for 45 minutes. Once you have found your places of refuge, Bombay first becomes human and then – without you noticing exactly when – it completes the seduction and becomes delightful. And then, gradually, you discover the simple joy of morning chai and omelette at Kyani & Co., of dawdling in Horniman Circle on a lazy morning, of eating your fill on Mohammed Ali Road, of strolling on the sands at Chowpatty at sunset and of taking the air at Nariman Point at night.

Cut the potatoes into bite-sized pieces, add to a pan of boiling, salted water and cook until almost tender. Drain and pat dry, then set aside. Dishoom‘s take on bhel – a light, almost-salad street food dish of puffed rice, sev, chopped onions, tomatoes, chilli and chutney. Add ruby-red pomegranate seeds for extra colour and flavour.The Parsis are a proper Bombay success story. They are an ancient and distinct community from Iran which has not only been absorbed into the city, but has shaped it and is completely identified with it. At the same time, the community has held onto its identity and traditions with integrity. The Parsis originally landed and settled north of Bombay in Gujarat a thousand years ago, but came to the city as it grew. (Gujarat is also where Shamil and Kavi’s family is from.) They were enterprising and valued education, and became wealthy and influential through trade in cotton, opium and other goods. They were also strongly civic-minded and philanthropic. Over the centuries, Bombay has owed a significant part of its infrastructure and public culture to the Parsis’ generosity. The Irani cafés were not just a source of romantic nostalgia. They were also important. Nineteenth-century Bombay is often and rightly described as a cosmopolitan city, but eating out was uncommon and almost always segregated. Religions had strong and specific prescriptions on diet, with caste an additional division. Further, the colonists created racially exclusive spaces. Those with brown skin couldn’t enter the Yacht Club or the Bombay Gymkhana and generally weren’t allowed to eat in the dining halls of hotels. (The great Parsi industrialist, Jamsetji Tata, changed this when he opened the Taj Mahal Palace hotel where the rule was clear that no one could ever be denied access for being Indian.) A beautiful book that will transport your palate straight to the Irani cafés of Bombay.” – Susan Low

In a bowl, mix the garlic and ginger pastes, tomato puree, salt, chilli powder and garam masala into a paste. This beautiful cookery book and its equally beautiful photography will transport you to Dishoom's most treasured corners of an eccentric and charming Bombay. Read it, and you will find yourself replete with recipes and stories to share with all who come to your table. It’s simply a beautiful, hefty thing to have in your home, fragrant with stories of the Parsi cafes dotted across Bombay and a narrative that’ll have you greedily racing towards the end like a pulp fiction novella." – Lucas OakeleyThere are few cookbooks that immerse you in their subject so thoroughly and so lovingly as Dishoom ‘From Bombay with Love’. Part travel guide, part history, part food manual, this reads like a personal diary with a stonking recipe collection as a bonus. I could eat the Mattar Paneer every week and I probably will, with a Chilli Cheese Toast chaser.” – Lulu Grimes The Dishoom cookbook bundle is everything you need to conjure up the Bombay flavours, made famous by the London restaurant menu. The bestselling cookbook complete with ten, full-size key ingredients and spices at your fingertips to recreate the renowned restaurant dishes at home. Koolar & Co. has a specific importance for me. Not far away is a small ground-floor flat in an unremarkable building, where my mother and I spent a few months of my very early life. My family had been thrown out of our home on another continent, and Bombay was our refuge when we had nowhere else to go. We actually celebrated my first birthday here in Koolar & Co. and apparently we had a little cake. This would certainly be a memory I would lovingly treasure if I had it. At long last, we’re delighted to say that we’ve written the Dishoom cookery book, with over 100 recipes for the Bombay comfort food and drink that we love. In 1947, the joyous awakening of the nation to life and freedom was stained with the blood from Partition. The violent rupture of the subcontinent into India and Pakistan resulted in perhaps a million deaths.