🖊 No-one ever died of too much chutney

Sejal Sukhadwala has her doubts about the oft-cited origin stories of the Bombay sandwich - and suggests a different theory. All photographs by Sejal Sukhadwala.

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‘Bombay sandwich’ sounds like something a supermarket may have concocted for its ‘flavours of the world’ range; in fact, it’s a classic sandwich that dates back to mid-twentieth century India. Although wildly popular in Bombay and its surrounding regions in western India, it’s relatively little known in the UK. A few Gujarati cafés in London serve it, but the quality varies; it’s best to make it at home so you can customise it to your own taste. 

For one sandwich, you’ll need two or three thick slices of white bread, depending on whether you want it single-layered or double-decker (the latter is more classic). An inexpensive sturdy variety like a supermarket sandwich loaf is ideal. Lavishly spread one side with salted butter, and generously slather green coriander chutney on the other. If you love the person you’re making it for – including yourself – add extra dollops of chutney. Nobody ever died of too much chutney. 

Thinly slice cooked potatoes, cooked beetroot (without vinegar), onions, peeled cucumber, and tomatoes into rounds and stack them up in single layers, with the hardier vegetables at the bottom (for a double-decker sandwich, combine the vegetables differently for both layers). Sprinkle a little ‘sandwich masala’ between each pile of vegetables. Yep, there is such a thing – look, we’re talking about a cuisine that has masalas for everything, including soda and coffee.

Finish with grated or sliced cheese – mozzarella is good, but Cheddar is even better. If eating untoasted, the traditional way, remove the crusts; if toasting in the more popular modern style, leave them on and make sure the surfaces of the top and bottom slices have an extra slick of butter. If your sandwich is full to bursting and difficult to fit into a sandwich toaster, you’ve got it about right. 

Green coriander chutney is the ubiquitous accompaniment to Indian snacks, but if you haven’t come across it before, it’s made by combining large handfuls of fresh green coriander leaves and stems, green chillies, and lemon juice with a splash of water and blending the whole lot until smooth. You’ll need to season generously. It should have a dip-like consistency, like a slightly watered-down hummus. 

Bombay sandwich untoasted at Bombay Spice Nashta House in Kingsbury

There are riffs on this basic mix: ginger, garlic, mint leaves, toasted cumin powder, amchoor powder, chaat masala, green mangoes, tamarind paste, grated fresh coconut, unsalted peanuts, white sesame seeds, yoghurt, green apples or green bell peppers. Experiment with a few different ingredient combinations before you hit upon a chutney that’s just right for your taste, its deeply verdant, herby flavour balanced with heat and tang. ‘Vibrant’ is the word that should pop into your head as soon as you taste it. It’s this green chutney that gives this sandwich its name – a staple of Bombay’s sandwich-wallahs, who use a more basic recipe that’s thicker in consistency and bulked up with spinach leaves and roasted split Bengal gram. 

‘Sandwich masala’ is a relatively recent invention and started becoming commercially available I think in the 1990s or 2000s. I remember the excitement with which it was greeted when a cousin visiting from Bombay brought over a few packs around the time it was newly introduced. It’s occasionally seen in UK’s Indian grocers but if you can’t find it, make your own by lightly toasting cinnamon sticks, cumin seeds, fennel seeds and black peppercorns in a dry frying pan, and then grinding them together into a fine powder. A sour or pungent spice such as amchoor powder or black salt is essential. You can use more readily available chaat masala instead, as many people do. 

No food historian has studied the history of Indian sandwiches with any degree of seriousness – and I’m more than happy to take on this onerous task if anyone wants me to – but many have speculated that the Bombay sandwich was created by Bombay’s street food vendors. It was either to feed the local textile workers or, in another version of the story, the textile workers themselves set up stalls when the mills started closing down. Neither of these ring true to me, however, and I think the Bombay sandwich is an example of a posh item that gradually became ‘street’.

Bread was introduced to India by the Portuguese colonials in the nineteenth century, who set up bakeries in Goa, and later in Bombay and Calcutta. In the absence of commercially available yeast, the bakers initially used feni – an alcoholic liquor made from cashew nuts or coconut – to ferment the dough. Along with other foreign ingredients and dishes, the Portuguese pao would have been seen as exotic and elegant at the time.

Bombay sandwich toasted at Shree Sai VadaPav in Kingsbury

The first references to sandwiches in India that I’ve come across are on the menus of gentlemen’s clubs set up for British colonials. The three prominent ones were the Bengal Club in Calcutta in 1827, the Madras Club that opened in Madras in 1833, and the Byculla Club that launched in Bombay the same year. The Calcutta Club’s sandwiches are still renowned to this day, and I think this is where British sandwiches were first introduced – Calcutta being the headquarters of the British. They then started becoming available in railway dining cars to meet the needs of travelling colonials.

The novelty and glamour of these club menus rubbed off on affluent Indian housewives, who by the early twentieth century were making sandwiches at home. The strict vegetarian, upper-middle-class Gujarati and Marwari women in Bombay would have removed the meat, chicken, and egg mayonnaise, leaving two of the more popular salad vegetables – tomatoes and cucumber. They were probably the first to add green chutney, either as a lubricant or as an extra burst of flavour to suit the Indian palate. 

I’m only speculating here, but these ‘chutney sandwiches’ – still very common in India and a feature of many Indians’ childhood memories – adapted from the meat and salad sandwiches of the smart clubs, were an early form of Bombay sandwich. Crusts would have been removed, and the sandwiches cut into four pieces held together with cocktail sticks decorated with glace cherries or pineapple pieces. These refined dainties were served at tea parties and children’s birthday parties with potato crisps, fries, or soup on the side. 

The rising popularity of British-influenced international dishes meant that by the late 1950s, Bombay sandwiches had started appearing on the menus of college canteens and cool new cafés where young dating couples hung out. Older members of my family, misty-eyed with nostalgia, recall they were the trendy thing to order alongside ‘vegetable cutlets’, French toast, Russian salad, and stuffed tomatoes, all invariably served with fries. 

Bombay sandwich toasted at Mumbai Local Harrow

The early version of the Bombay sandwich didn’t contain cheese; cheese came later when Amul, now one of India’s most iconic brands, made butter and cheese popular. Processed yellow cheese of indistinct nature, initially available in tins, was used before India’s modern-day cheese revolution made Cheddar and mozzarella the preferred choices. 

Around the late 1960s or ‘70s, the Chorleywood Process was introduced to India, and suddenly packaged sliced white bread was everywhere. It was slightly sweet, perhaps to resemble the taste of Portuguese pao that Indians had been used to, not unlike the milk bread we get in supermarkets today. These days people in India sometimes opt for wholewheat, multigrain, or sourdough for their Bombay sandwich, but trashy sliced white is still the most suitable option.

Bombay sandwich toasted at Sakonis Wembley

The earliest sandwiches were not grilled; eventually, they were toasted on a hot tawa, charcoal stoves (how cool does ‘charcoal-roasted sandwich’ sound to today’s Londoners?), or hand-held metal sandwich toasters that you flip back and forth over a gas hob as though you were toasting a papad. Then electric sandwich toasters entered the market and there was no looking back – the most common way to eat the Bombay sandwich from now was toasted. 

Bombay’s street food vendors rapidly embraced the wide availability of both cheap, ready-sliced bread, and mammoth commercial sandwich toasters that looked like something out of a torture chamber. They bulked up – and blinged up – the old chutney sandwich with potatoes and beetroot, using everything in excess – more vegetables, more chutney, more cheese, more spice. Why beetroot? Who knows – it’s used in Calcutta cooking a little bit more than in Bombay, but it’s also common in chunkily chopped vegetable salads.

Whereas a home cook would have carefully arranged six slices of potatoes in their sandwich, the vendors somehow managed to fit in two whole potatoes, dousing their creations with a monsoon shower of grated cheese and sandwich masala that blanketed its entire surface. As if this weren’t enough, the sandwiches were topped with large handfuls of fine sev (crunchy gram flour ‘vermicelli’) and cut into bite-sized squares, with extra chutney and ketchup on the side to dip into.

Indian cuisine is changing so fast that I’m surprised the classic Bombay sandwich has barely changed over 65 years or so. Many people substitute beetroot with the more popular green bell peppers, turn the cooked potatoes into a masala dosa-style spiced mush, or add ‘Szechuan sauce,’ but otherwise, it’s remained pretty true to the original.

I recently tasted Bombay sandwiches in four of London’s Gujarati cafés – but while they were all okay, they didn’t compare to the ones you find in India. They skimped on green chutney too much, used ready-made sweet chilli sauce, and omitted the sandwich masala altogether. A good quality generously proportioned hot and slightly sour green chutney, and a judicious pinch of aromatic sandwich masala is key to the success of this otherwise humble sandwich. 

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Sejal Sukhadwala is a London-based food writer whose first book 'The Philosophy of Curry' is out now. You can follow Sejal on Twitter @SejalSukhadwala