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Persian food has had a good couple of decades in English. Where once there was a single classic cookbook, there is now a whole shelf, from encyclopaedic regional surveys to quick weeknight books by British-Iranian cooks. If you are trying to recreate the dishes you ate in Tehran, or cook for Iranian friends without embarrassing yourself, these are the books we would start with.
Food of Life, Najmieh Batmanglij. First published in 1986 and revised several times since, Food of Life is the book many Iranians abroad were given when they left home. It is huge, thorough and full of the stories and customs around each dish, and it is where to look when you want the traditional version of something. Batmanglij’s later Cooking in Iran travels round the provinces, collecting regional recipes you will not find in most Tehran restaurants.
Persiana, Sabrina Ghayour. Ghayour’s first book, Persiana, made Persian and Middle Eastern home cooking feel easy to a British audience. Recipes are short, ingredients can mostly be found in a big supermarket, and the results are reliably good. It is the best book here for someone who wants to cook Persian-inspired food on a Tuesday night.
The Saffron Tales, Yasmin Khan. Khan travelled across Iran collecting recipes from home cooks, and The Saffron Tales mixes them with portraits of the people and places she visited. It is a good choice if you want food with a sense of the country behind it.
Bottom of the Pot, Naz Deravian. Named after tahdig, the golden crust at the bottom of a pot of rice that everyone fights over, Bottom of the Pot is a warm, personal book that explains the techniques of Persian rice cooking more clearly than almost anything else.
Pomegranates and Roses, Ariana Bundy. Pomegranates and Roses sits between the encyclopaedic and the everyday, with good sections on stews, sweets and the dishes cooked for celebrations.
The New Persian Kitchen, Louisa Shafia. If you eat little or no meat, The New Persian Kitchen reworks classic dishes with a lighter, vegetable-led approach.
The Legendary Cuisine of Persia, Margaret Shaida. Shaida, an Englishwoman who lived in Iran for many years, wrote The Legendary Cuisine of Persia as a history as much as a recipe book. It is the one for readers who want to know where a dish came from as well as how to make it.
Stocking up. Whichever book you choose, you will need a few things your local shop may not stock, such as dried limes, barberries, kashk and good saffron. Our Persian pantry guide lists them with links, and our Persian recipes section has dishes to try first.
