EGYPTIAN FOOD
The variety of Egyptian recipes is endless. They go back a very long way. As a result of subsequent colonization, foreign influence is somewhat present, specially from the Turkish cuisine (it is understandable after more than 300 years of Turkish presence in Egypt). The "Pashas" living in Cairo mainly employed the natives as help and cooks. Their kitchen doors opened to us with their culinary secrets and, hence, Turkish food became part of ours.Like any crossroads culture, Egyptian cuisine has picked and chosen those ingredients and food that grow best as well as best meet the flavor and nutritional needs of their people. Bridging Africa and Asia as it does, Egypt has a lot from which to choose.
Tourist hotel meals will offer well prepared if unexciting meat/vegetable/starch entrees but that's not the real food of the real people. To eat "real," you have to eat "street." And Egypt is a culinary adventure. "Eating street" as we define it, doesn't confine itself to standup meals from cart vendors -- it's more the everyday cuisine of the everyday person in the street. These everyday Egyptians eat well. Meats are largely grilled or roasted, whole or minced, with lamb and chicken predominating. You see a lot of cows but they seem to serve more as farm equipment than beef.
The shish kabob style is extremely popular and is served either with or without the skewers but always with traditional accompaniments: greens and tomato salad, tahini sauce and pita bread. So you can stuff your own sandwich if you want. Bread is always whole wheat pita, coated with coarse ground wheat, round, fragrant and sheer heaven when hot from the oven. Often pita plus a dipping sauce, tahini, hummus or babaganoush, makes a fast food meal and a healthy, delicious one at that.
Egyptians have embraced the tomato and we never had one that wasn't bursting with color and flavor. The traditional and ubiquitous salad is chopped tomato, coriander, mint, little hot green peppers (not jalapenos but close) and onions, coated with garlic oil. It's great for digestion but death on the breath. Bring mints. Other veggies that grow well and show up all the time include beans, mostly chick pea and fava, which are eaten stewed for breakfast, hearty stewed for lunch and dinner and ground and pasted for tahini and hummus with great amounts of garlic.
Eggplant, mashed as the main ingredient in babaganoush, is also used in Egyptian moussaka with a mild white cheese. Okra, cabbage, cauliflower and potatoes show up frequently, stewed with tomatoes and garlic. Rice is a universal constant and was consistently wonderful, even for breakfast! The grains mix short basmati-like rice with longer brown, nutty tasting rice and we wish we could have found it to bring back.
Grilled pigeon is the acclaimed delicacy and like any small game bird is long on flavor but short on ease of eating. We only had fish on the Red Sea, perch and tuna, both fried, but flavorful without excess oil. We had various types of pasta from time to time but never did find out if it was wheat flour or rice flour based. Nevertheless it was uniformly delicious.
Of course, when you think "Orient" you think spices. Egyptian bazaars display staggering amounts, sculptured into colorful spice pyramids, from yellows of saffron and ochres of curries to deep blues of powdered indigo dye. Food is usually spices but not spicy. Cumin and salt are found on restaurant tables.
Middle Eastern desserts are nothing special; they do bake but, to the Western taste, figs, date and nut fillings in largely unsweetened dough isn't a dessert. Better to eat the fresh figs, dates (of which there must be 200 different types and grades), oranges and pomegranates without baked modifications. Speaking of fruit, juice bars abound in the streets and fresh squeezed oranges sweetened with cut sugar cane is heaven in a hot climate.
Beverages? In a Moslem country alcohol is frowned on and is wildly expensive to tourists. But Stella, the local beer, is mild, not overly "beery" and comes in huge bottles which is handy to quench the permanent thirst in the desert climate.
Recipes gathered here are those known to the common Egyptian, irrelevant of their origin. Their names in Arabic are the ones we all know and use. Ingredients used are very easily found in Middle East/Oriental specialty stores
Beef and Lamb
Asabi' gullash bi-l-lahma: Dry pastry Fingers with Meat Filling
Batat
Bamya
Fattah
Feta and Lamb Stuffed Grape Leaves
Feteer Bel Asaag
Kebab Halla Stewed Meat
Kofta
Kofta with Apricot Sauce
Kufta bi-l-fahma: Meat fingers flavored with charcoal
Lahma mu'assaga: Savory Minced Meat
Lamb and Eggplant
LAMB in Phyllo
Lamb Tagine with Prunes
Lemon-flavored Lamb
Ma'loobet el Bedingan (Eggplant with Rice Casserole)
Mombar
Moussaka Cauliflower
North African Sweet Potato Meat Pie
Ru'a'bil-l-lahma: Crisp Pastry with Meat Filling
Saniyit Kufta - Baked Minced Beef
Seleq – Lamb with Rice from the Arabian Peninsula
Shish Kebab with Cinnamon Clove Rub
Swarma
Tagin lisan 'asfur: Pastry Casserole
Chicken, Fowl, and Egg Recipes
"Ancient" Egyptian Marinade
Chicken and Pasta Corniche
Chicken with Chickpeas
Crepes Avec Volaille et Pomme chez Marie
Egyptian Spinach Omelet
Fig and Lemon Chicken
Fried Eggs with Pastrami
Fried Eggs with White Cheese
Hamam Mahshi bi Burghul (Cornish Hens with Bulgur, Raisins, and Pine Nuts)
Igga baladi Omelet
Lemon Seafood Pasta Chez Sherra's Place
Moroccan Spice Braised Chicken with Dates and Almonds
Shakshukat beed iskandarani – Hardboiled eggs a la Alexandria
Stuffed Duck and Potatoes
Tabouli Chicken Casserole
Fish
Baked Fish (Poisson 'a la grecque)
Lemon Seafood Pasta Chez Sherra's Place
Sayyadiah - Fish With Rice
Spicy Shrimp
Moroccan Shrimp Barawats
Tagin samak bi-l-firik: Fish casserole with hulled grain
Toasted Pine Nut Couscous with Garlic Shrimp
Drinks
Chocolate Coffee Midnight Dessert: A Sweet Special for Valentine's Day!
Karkady - Hibiscus Tea
Fruit Lassi ~ A Cool Drink for a Hot Day In Cairo
Lemonade
Raspberry Mint Cairo Cooler
Reba's Mango Milkshakes
Soups, Stews, and Salads
Avocado, Olive, Onion & Chickpea Salad
Bean Salad
Cucumber Chickpea Salad
Easy Cabbage Salad
Exotic Nile Split Pea Soup
Fasolia Khadra Lil Salata (Fresh Green bean Salad)
Green Salad with Homemade Salad Dressing
Kishk (Soup)
Koshaf (Salad)
Lemon Garlic Potato Salad
Mango-Chicken-Rice Salid
Miriam's Crunchy Chicken Salad
Meat Soup or Fatta
Melokiyah (Soup)
Moroccan Pumpkin Soup
Fresh Mozzarella, Tomato and Basil Causcous Salad
North African Cauliflower Soup with Cumin, Chives and Fennel
North African Cauliflower Soup
Orange and Olive Salad with Cumin
Orange and Radish Salad with Cinnamon Vinaigrette
Orzo and Peas Herb Salad
Pistachio Couscous
Rice Pilaf with golden Vermicelli
Ruzz bi-l-khudar - Rice with Vegetables
Salata Batatis (Potato Salad)
Salatit 'ads bi-gibba: Brown Lentil Salad
Salatit Krumb #1: (cabbage salad)
Salatit Krumb - Cabbage Salad
Shorba Ads (Lentil Soup)
Shorba Arnabeet Baladi: Spicy, Homestyle Cream of Cauliflower Soup
Shorbet (Soup)
Shurba bi-l-Tarbiya: Chicken Soup with Eggs and Lemon
Tabouli for the Eid
Tomato and Chickpea Soup: Hasa Tamatat ma' Hummus
Zesta Couscous Salad
Beans and Vegetables
Baked BBQ'd Lentils with a Cowboy Twist
Batatis mahshiya - Stuffed Potatoes
Chickpea and Cauliflower Couscous
Chickpeas with Tahina Sauce
Couscous with Currants and Cumin
Cucumber-Feta Salsa with Pita Crisps
Fava Beans Supreme
Feteeret el Sabanekh wa Lisan el Asfour (Spinach Orzo Pie)
Fuul
Fuul, Quick and Easy
Herb Roasted Tomatoes
Hindbeh for Ramadan
Hummus
Kosheri
Koshari
Lentil and Feta Bake Recipe
Lentil and Rice Crispy Onions
Mahshy (Stuffed Eggplant with Rice)
Musa''a'a: Stewed Eggplant
Ruz ahmar: Rice with Onions
Ruzz bi-l-mukassarat - Rice, Fried with Nuts
Sabanikhiyat: Spinach Turnovers
Spicy Chickpeas
Spicy Couscous
Spinach with Dill
Stuffed Zucchini (Kosa Mahshiya)
Turli - Casserole of Mixed Vegetables
Vegetarian Lentil Stuffed Tomatos
Breads
Fatush ~ Homestyle Bread Salad
Fig and Date Bread, suitable for the Suhoor, the before sunrise meal of Ramadan
Middle Eastern Barley Flat Bread
Homemade Pita Bread
Semit Sesame Bread Rings
Sweets and Desserts
Almond Bracelets (Kahk bi Loz)
Apricot Pudding
Apricot Rice Pudding
Baklawa
Bariwat
Basboosa - Semolina Cake with Honey and Lemon
Biram Ruz
"Bread and Butter" Pudding
Caramel Stuffed Walnuts from Cleopatra
Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Butter Gooey Cake - A Good, Gooey Dessert
Coconut Almond Pound Cake
Coconut Squares
Date Fruit Cup
GHREYBA - North African Butter Cookies
Granittat-al-Lamun: Lemon Ice
Italian Cream Cake
Kahk
Keeka Baladi min Shokolata: Easy and Delicious Chocolate Cake
Khoshaf 'ar' 'asali - Pumpkin Pudding
Konafa
Koshaf
Mango Cup Dessert
Mihallabiya (Rosewater Flavored Milk Pudding
Milk Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake
Ommal
Phyllo
Pineapple Rice Dessert
Qatayef -Ramadan Sweets
Ros Bel Laban
Roz bi laban (Rice Pudding)
Ru'a'bi-l-gibna: Crisp Pastry with Cheese Filling
Ruzz bi-l-mukassarat Rice, Fried with Nuts
Sahlab
Sambusak Turnovers
Semolina Cake
Spiced Oranges and Raisins (Al Burtugal Wal Zabib Al Mutabal)
Stuffed Dates
Upside Down Cherry Pudding
Zabadee el Mishmish: Apricot Mousse ~ a Light summer dessert
Koshary
Imagine, mixing into a single dish, pasta, rice, lentil, chick peas, onions and garlic and adding to this chili sauce. The idea sounds horrific, until one tries out an Egyptian favorite called Koshary. “I had always heard about Koshary, and its importance to Egyptians. You can see it in movies and you would hear Egyptians in Saudi Arabia describe it as the most delicious traditional dish, so I was keen to try it the moment I came to Egypt. Now I’m an addict,” said Wael Fawaz,a Syrian medical student at Misr (Cairo) University for Science and Technology. “You can’t visit Egypt and not eat Koshary, you’ll miss a lot,” he added.
Koshary is a traditional Egyptian meal that consists of a strange combination of macaroni, spaghetti, rice, black lentils, chick peas, garlic sauce and a spicy tomato chili sauce, all topped with fried onions. It is sold from carts by street vendors, in restaurants or even made at home and each is considered a different taste experience. The Koshary man stands in front of the large containers that hold each of the dish's ingredient. Usually, there is a line of people waiting to be served. Once you place your order, you stand in a row waiting to give the Koshary man your receipt that states the price of your dish. At the moment you give him the receipt the Koshary man grabs a bowl, and scoops a little of each ingredient into the bowl and ends it to your table. Each Koshary dish takes about five seconds to prepare (of course, after the ingredients are cooked).His speed can be surprising to you. “I have worked here since we opened 10 years ago, and before that I sold Koshary on a street cart, so I have to be fast. My hands are accustomed to the same movements I do all day everyday, so you can say that I memorized the movements rather than think about them,” said Aziz Awad, a Koshary man in one of the restaurants downtown. As the Koshary man scoops, he knocks his metal spoon against the sides of the bowls, making the Koshary symphony that you won’t hear elsewhere. When the Koshary man prepares an order of more than four the restaurant fills with sound as if it was a rehearsal for a concert. “The restaurants of Koshary are very noisy. One sits to eat while the Koshary man practices his drums in your ears. It's weird but I guess it’s a part of the Egyptian identity which you get used to in time,” said Fawaz.At the table, all the dishes are aluminum except the two glass bottles that ontain two different kinds of sauce, one made from vinegar and oil, the other from spicy red pepper. “The chili is a whole new dimension for the meal. You can eat Koshary and it would taste good, but for it to be this delicious you have to use chili. That creates all the taste,” said Waleed Abdullah, an office boy.Koshary is considered a meal that is inexpensive yet fills up the stomach of an average Egyptian. “Koshary is something I love; I can have it for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It’s eaten anytime, anywhere. I can eat it standing, sitting, at work or at home,” said Abdullah. “It’s a meal that is both affordable and delicious.
Bread in Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egyptians, depending on their wealth and status, could have a varied diet, but central to their nourishment was bread and beer. From very early on, both were consumed at every meal, by everyone, and no meal was considered complete without them. Bread, nutritionally, provided protein, starch and trace nutrients, and it also played much the same role as beer in the Egyptian economy as well as in cult rituals. However, some flour caused severe abrasion of the teeth particularly among those who depended upon bread as their main source of nourishment. But this affected all classes and even Amenhotep III suffered badly from such problems.
Bread was made from a variety of ingredients, though often only a specific species of wheat was thought best (Triticum aestivum), though almost any cereal was suitable. Depending on the type of flour, the structure and texture of a loaf could be very different, and just as today, all breads were not light, risen or spongy. Thankfully, the climate of Egypt, which is very arid in many locations, isresponsible for preserving a rich record of organic materials, including bread loaves. Hundreds of specimens have survived, mostly from funerary offerings that have found their way into the museums of the world. These even include fragments from Predynastic graves of the Badarian culture. Talk about stale! These loaves are over five thousand years old. These ancient loaves, though a direct source of evidence about ancient Egyptian bread and baking, have actually not been studied much by modern scholars. Hence, though many breads and cakes are known from historical documents, their distinguishing features are in fact unknown. Some scholars have suggested that pesen-bread was a flat round loaf, not unlike that found in Egypt today. However, preserved loaves have shown that breads of the same shape were not always made from the same ingredient or the same recipe and, therefore, may not have been known by the same name. For example, extant hand-formed conical loaves were frequently made from emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccum), though one known specimen was made mostly from figs (Ficus carica). At the same time, various shapes and textures of bread could also be made from the same batch of dough.We mostly know the process of baking from the evidence of artistic scenes in which it is depicted. For example, one of the best examples comes from a relief in a 5th Dynasty tomb at Saqqara belonging to Ti. However, there are also Old Kingdom statuettes that portray baking activities. Middle Kingdom models, notably from the tomb of Meketra, also provide some details, as well as give us a idea of a busy, robust bakery. Also, several tombs at Beni Hasan contain bread-making scenes, and at least one other is found in the New Kingdom wall paintings of Nebamun's tomb on the West Bank of Thebes (modern Luxor).
The preparations for making bread in ancient Egypt were somewhat more difficult that in our modern times, principally because of the distinctive nature of their staple wheat, emmer, which differs in some properties from most modern wheat used to make bread. Emmer was used into the Ptolamic Period. Today, typical bread wheat (Triticum aestivum) has ears that easily separate into chaff and grain when threshed. The traditional process for processing it uses winnowing and sieving to remove the chaff from the grain. However, emmer requires more extensive processing, which at least in families was usually performed by women. Usually, only enough grain was ground at one time to fill the needs of a day's meals.
After threshing, it breaks into packets called spikelets, each of which is a thick envelope of chaff that tightly surround two kernels. Prior to winnowing and sieving to clean the chaff from the kernels, a process is needed to break the chaff apart without damaging the grain. From various research and experimental evidence, we do have some idea of the procedures employed to processes the spikelets by the ancient Egyptians. We believe that whole spikelets were moistened with a small amount of water and than pounded with wooden pestles in limestone mortars. Since the water made the spikelets pliable, the chaff could be shredded without crushing the grain kernels inside. This was not a time consuming process, although the ancient Egyptian mortars were usually small and several batches of spikelets had to be processed before enough freed kernels were produced to make bread for even a family. Even after this added process, the released grain kernels and broken chaff then had to be tried, probably under the sun. Afterwards, it went through a series of winnowing steps, and sieving, The sieves made from rushes and the like were not very efficient and allowed grains of sand and little flakes of stone to remain in the flour, especially when soft mill stones were used. In fact, the last step in the process was the removal of final fragments of chaff which were picked out by hand. Next, the the whole grain was milled into flour, usually using a flat grinding stone known as a saddle quern. From Neolithic times through the Old Kingdom, these grinding stones were placed on the floor, which made the process difficult. However, tombs scenes of the Middle Kingdom show the querns raised onto platforms, called quern emplacements. Some of these have been excavated at a few New Kingdom sites. They made life much easier, and probably made the work quicker as well. Modern experimentation with these devices has shown that no grit was required to aid the milling process, as has sometimes been suggested by scholars, and the the texture of the flour could be precisely controlled by the miller. Baking also evolved over ancient Egypt's long history. Excavation of a bakery dating to the Old Kingdom at Giza evidences that heavy pottery bread molds were set in rows on a bed of embers to bake the dough placed within them. By the Middle Kingdom, square hearths were used, and the pottery moulds were altered into tall, narrow, almost cylindrical cones. Then, by the New Kingdom, a new oven was introduced with a large, open-clay cylinder encased in thick mud bricks and mortar. The flat disks of dough, perhaps leavened, were slapped onto the pre heated inner oven wall. When baked, they peeled off and were caught before they could fall into the embers below.Bread loaves are especially numerous in tombs of the New Kingdom, and are not limited as to size, shape or decorations. In fact, some loaves were formed into recognizable shapes, such as fish and human figures. Others were not as fancy, taking simple shapes such as disks and fans. The dough textures of these loaves range from very fine to mealy, mostly only indicating the people, as today, probably had preferences in the type of bread they liked to eat. Whole or coarsely cracked cooked grains were often added, creating a texture not unlike modern multigrain breads. Emmer flower was almost always used for these loaves. Barley (Hordeum vulgare) was very rarely used in these bread loaves, and the amount that does show up is in such small amounts that it may have accidentally gotten into the mix. Somtimes, the sour dough left over from the previous day might be added, or some barm from the last time beer was brewed. There were flavorings, such as coriander seeds (Coriandrum sativum), honey, butter, eggs, oil an herbs, as well as fruits such as dates (Phoenix dactylifera) which were occasionally added. Yeast might also be added to some recipes, but leavening was not always used.
Seemingly, bread flavored with more exotic ingredients were probably only infrequently available to the poorer classes of Egyptians, though more research is needed to determine what breads were available to the various social classes. Unfortunately, funerary loaves comprise most of our evidence of early breads, which might not be representative of the day-to-day variety. However, the remains of cereal-processing equipment and baking installations at settlements sites has provided some evidence for the preparation of ancient Egyptian bread, and these sites may yet yield up more typical loaves.
Source: Tour Egypt
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