Egyptian Food

[hillvalley]

My class is spending the next few weeks studying Egypt and the desert so it's time to start planning my next food lesson. The only problem is that I know nothing about Egyptian food. I have no idea of what to try with this one.

Does anyone know anything about Egyptian Cuisine? Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Specifically I am looking for basic foods, ideas of what kids eat and any special dining rituals. Easy recpies would also be great. Help me keep my reputation as the teacher that brings in funky food! Thanks

[Jason Perlow]

Modern Egyptian cuisine is not fundmentally different than the food of any other middle eastern country in that general vicinity -- aka Israel, Lebanon, Syria. Salads, kebabs (made of lamb and beef or chicken), mezze-type stuff like hummus and babaghanoush, served with Pita bread are very common. Lots of legumes, usage of common middle eastern spices and staples such as cumin, zatar, couscous, eggplants, chickpeas, phyllo dough, feta, etc.

Here are some sites with some recipes:

http://www.touregypt.net/recipes/

http://www.egyptmagic.com/story_food.htm

http://www.egyptdailynews.com/recipes/recipes.htm

We have an eGCI course on Lebanese food that should be a really good starting point for middle eastern food in general although Egyptian versions of these dishes will vary to some extent. For the most part, the cuisines are very very close -- and Lebanon was part of greater Ottoman Empire that included Egypt (And Lebanon was part of Pharonic Egypt), so there is a lot overlap in Middle Eastern food, particularly in the area of Egypt, Palestine/Israel, Lebanon and Syria.

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=28480

For the most part every dish in that course exists in Egypt as well, with slight variations. Every middle eastern family makes this stuff slightly different anyway.

There are dishes of other cultures like Moussakka that are very popular in Egypt that came from elsewhere. Falafel, which is in the eGCI course, is eaten all over the middle east but will vary wildly in preparation (The egyptians use fava beans in theirs instead of chickpeas)

ANCIENT egyptian food, from pharonic times is wildly different, however.

[torakris]

You could try getting your hands on melokheya, it is a green but it is also the name of the national dish of Egypt. There are also a thousand ways to spell it......

I started a thread on it a little while back (with pictures! )

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...=0entry446418

Since you love natto, I am sure you will love this (slimy, very slimy)and the kids might enjoy it.........probably not..

[boaziko]

Try this Falafel,(GC++ in the Falafel thread) made it successfuly many times:

"My recipe of Falafel is from the time I worked at the Dorchester Hotel in London.

The Egyptian chef in charge of all Oriental cuisine (apart from the Chinese off course) gave it to me.

I found it very good:

½ Kilo (1 pound) Dried Chickpeas

1 White Onion

½ Kilo (1 pound) Leeks

Half of the volume of the leeks – cilantro or coriander leaves

6 Tbsp Coriander seeds (Don’t mix them with white pepper corns)

2 Tbsp Ground Cumin

Sesames seeds

Salt

1) Soak the chickpeas for two nights in water, changing the water twice a day.

2) Chop the onion, leeks and coriander leaves.

3) Grind all ingredients; if too dry add some water.

4) Heat the oil up to 180C (= 356F)

5) Before frying roll the Falafel balls in sesames seeds."

[zora]

While the Egyptians do eat versions of Levantine food (baba ghanouj, hummous, etc.) it's generally heavier and spiced differently (usually blander, to my mind...or maybe just earthier--it rarely has the brightness that Lebanese food has).

One particularly Egyptian thing is bisara, which is a fava bean paste, served cold, usually spiced with cumin and cilantro. If you get it in fancy places or houses, it's almost jellied from the starch, and you can schloop a big firm scoop onto your plate. In more casual places, it's more of a spread.

Also, kushari is the big street food: a starch bomb of rice, lentils and vermicelli bits, topped with a spicy, vinegary tomato sauce (usually smooth) and crisp-fried onions. You can then shake on a hot, garlicky vinegar sauce for more kick.

Ful medammas, or slow-cooked fava beans with tomatoes, garlic and onion, are the real staple--pretty much every restaurant has a big bulgy container of these simmering away.

Ta'amiya is the variation on falafel--as someone above said, it's fava beans instead of chickpeas, and bright green because fresh herbs--parsley and cilantro, usually, but I think there are other more Egypt-specific greens used too--are blended in when making the paste. It's usually served with a heavy tahini topping, unlike a lot of Levantine falafel, where you get a yoghurty sauce.

Misa'a is the Egyptian version of moussaka--none of the cinnamon that Greeks use, and no bechamel topping. And pretty often not much lamb either...

OK, this could digress into a serious judgmental rant at any second... All that said, my favorite restaurant in the world is an Egyptian one, the Kabab Cafe, in Astoria, NY. But the chef is from Alexandria, which I think has a better food heritage because there's more pan-Mediterranean influence.

There's an article from Saveur on Egyptian food, which makes it sound much more delicious than I can:

Saveur Egyptian story

And Claudia Roden's original book on Middle Eastern cooking is heavy on Egyptian food because she's from there.

[cakewench]

Zora is a wealth of information! I'm coming in on this a bit late-

I was lucky enough to be able to stay with my Egyptian cousins in Heliopolis for several weeks back in 95. I wasn't quite the devoted foodie I am today, but I could still appreciate the tasty simplicity of much of the staple dishes.

The fava bean dishes are right on the money. I cannot for the life of me remember the names of the dishes I had, but what Zora has described sounds fairly accurate to me. The cold fava bean paste is very often served on bread (pita, or a similar flatbread), with chopped tomatoes and other fresh vegetables added. Heaps of garlic somehow find their way in there, as well. I mention these sandwiches to every Egyptian I've met since that trip. They always, always respond with a smile and a "oh YES, bean sandwiches!" and if we are being introduced on a personal basis, an invitation to share the sandwiches always follows closely. Wonderful people...

So yeah, bean sandwiches. Very Egyptian.

Also, the aforementioned falafel and hummus. I would give you the Egyptian recipe my cousin gave me directly, but I won't be home with it for another month.

There was always a plate of cheeses in the fridge, to have after dinner. mmm...

[Jason Perlow]

Zora: Excellent information -- and welcome to the site!

[hillvalley]

Zora-welcome and thank you for your great post!

Thank you for all the great info and links. I am on my third snow day have had a great time researching all the info you provided. Last week we made falafel and hummus while studying Israel so I think we will try the fava bean dish next.

For some reason I keep thinking that pomegranites are bigin Egypt. I am totally off base here?

[zora]

Thanks for the nice welcomes to the site! Happy to be here... And glad the info is useful.

Re: Pomegranates, they are used in Egypt, but I saw them primarily as juice: 'aseer ruman. Fresh-squeezed, just cut in half and squished on one of those big metal presses they use for oranges. So delicious--and actually reminded me that grenadine syrup is supposed to be pomegranate-flavored. As a big fan of Shirley Temples in my younger days, primarily for the grenadine syrup, I drank that pomegranate juice by the liter-bottle-full in season. (For the record, that Pom Wonderful stuff is nothing like it. Bleh. But I think that's been discussed on the Drinks thread.)

That's funny about the bean sandwiches. I also ate many a mashed-potato sandwich in Cairo (lots of parsley and garlic and slightly crunchy onions for texture)--ah, sweet starch!

[zora]

FYI, pomegranate syrup, aka pomegranate molasses, is also used in Egypt, but nowhere near as much as in Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Egyptians typically don't seem big on the fruit-meat combos you get in other countries.

[hillvalley]

Pomegranite Shirley Temples! What a great idea.

I love ST's and make a grown up version with vanilla vodka. If only I could introduce my class to that.

[Pan]

You'd get fired as fast as they could throw you out the door!

[hillvalley]

This isn't the first time the thought has crossed my mind

[Vikram]

I lived in Cairo for three weeks some years back and don't have particularly uplifting memories of Egyptian food. It wasn't that it was that bad, it just wasn't particularly interesting - as Zora said it was like Lebanese, but without the zing. My Indian tastes didn't mind the carb loading, but what was hard to take was the blandness.

Many of the things Egyptians went on about as great specialties often seemed to be rather overrated - grilled pigeons, for example, or Om-Ali, a milk pudding. Kushari was interesting, as a mutation of the Indian lentils and rice dish called khichri (which the Brits added fish to and made into kedgeree), but not exactly something to go to town about. Mulukhiya was, I'm sorry, just vile.

Snacks like falafal were cheap and good. Hummus, which I love, was oddly hard to find - I guess most people make their own, so it wasn't commercially sold. A pity, because I could have easily survived on just that and eish, the flatbread that widely sold and absurdly cheap - heavily subsidised as part of the benevolent dictatorship policy of the Egyptian government. You'd see big stacks of it on trays on the roadside which people could just help themselves too and leave money on an honour system.

But if the finished dishes weren't inspiring, what was WONDERFUL were just the fresh ingredients. It must be that hoariest of tourish cliche's, the gift of the Nile, that fruits and veg grown in the Delta were just better looking and more bursting with flavour than I can remember almost anywhere else. And the milk... I can close my eyes and still remember a creamy and mildy sour milk drink called rayab. I have never found anything like it even here in India, a country that fetishises milk products.

So try and all this out and when you and your friends get sick of the Egyptian foodm options, run quickly to Maison Thomas which I hope still has wonderful sandwiches and deli stuff, or El Fornaio Etam near the American University for wonderful croissants, the best thing to round up an early morning walk on the Nile corniche. Even if the food left something to be desired, I loved Cairo and the Egyptians and I'm sure you will too,

Vikram

[hillvalley]

If only we could travel there. Actually, if only I could travel there. My kids would never appreciate it.

I will definately bring up that they eat pigeon. What a great way to freak my students

Are the desserts similar to what you would find in the rest of that region? I have no idea where to find Egyptian candy and don't have the budget to order any.

[Vikram]

Sorry, didn't read your post carefully enough so thought you and your lucky class was actually going to Cairo. But even if you can't you should definitely try making some of the dishes. Kushari should be simple, if you can take all the carbs - its basically rice and noodles and lentils cooked together and served with lots of fried onions and a spicy tomato sauce. The best desserts in my opinion were the varities of baklava, which would be hard to get, but there were simpler semolina puddings or even Om-Ali shouldn't be hard to make and I'm sure you'll find recipes online. Or why not get your hands on Colette Rossant's lovely memoir of growing up in Cairo, Apricots On the Nile, I think its called. Its got some excellent recipes,

Vikram

[zora]

That's interesting about the provenance of kushari, Vikram--I had no idea. And too true about the pigeons. There was a restaurant near the shooting club in Doqqi that had urban legend constantly swirling around it: Some friend of a friend was always finding shot in her pigeon stuffed with fireekah (some kind of wheat treatment, but different from bulgur), so it was obvious the shooting club was just selling the dead birds to the restaurant.

The produce: that's what I really miss. Every week or two it seemed like something new was in season, and everything was just fantastic. I remember saying that I'd miss the tomatos in class once, and my Egyptian teacher said, "You should have tasted them before they put the dam in! Everything was so much better then!" How much of that is her childhood nostalgia, and how much is old-style farming with alluvial silt rather than chemical fertilizers, I don't know, but man, I wish I'd been alive then...

And the milk store: such a heavenly oasis! The one on my block was always air-conditioned and gleaming clean, which was great in the summer. They sold milk by weight in plastic bags, and yogurt and rice pudding. The milk is unhomogenized, so when I made yogurt with it, you'd get the layer of cream on top--delish.

As for desserts, Umm Ali (bread pudding with nuts and raisins) is the big thing. It can be good if it's not totally mushed up and still has some texture. During Ramadan there were also these little pancake things with 'ishta (clotted cream, usually with rose water or orange blossom water, and of course sugar) on top or stuffed inside. You could buy the pancakes from street vendors. I'm totally blanking on their name, though, and I don't think they're specific to Egypt. Wait: qatayif (plural).

Hillvalley, if you really want to horrify your students, tell them about Eid al-Adha, the holiday when every family slaughters a lamb. There was a lamb vendor near my house who set up shop a month before, and every day you'd see the numbers dwindle--kind of like a Christmas tree lot, but not. You hear all this bleating from behind closed doors and up on roofs. Day of, really, the gutters run with blood. And some guy comes around with a cart collecting the skins, and stacks them all up on each other and they make this gross schklurking sound... I loved it. On second thought, better not tell the students. They'd probably hold it against Muslims forever.

[ophelie]

Kefta, kebab, shawerma, and falafel as great choices indicative of street food.

I have had kushari on many occasions, but never really loved it. Perhaps it was the mixing of the rice and the noodles.

I love fiteer. It has a flaky pastry base, spread thing like a pizza, but is stuffed. The savory version often contains olives, feta, and other things (sometimes meat, tomato, etc.). The sweet version has honey, white raisins, and sometimes coconut. It's delicious.

Might I suggest the cookbook Egyptian Cooking: A Practical Guide published by The American University in Cairo Press? Their recipes are easy to follow. They have the best recipes for stuffed grape leaves, matlouba, hummus, and baba ghanoush that I have found.

-Ophelie

[chromedome]

I have an archaeologist friend who spent 30 years in Egypt. If you are still gathering material, I can touch base with him and see if he's interested in relaying some ideas.

[hillvalley]

We are having our Eqyptian feast on Friday, so any more information would be great! Thanks for all the wonderful information so far.

I am writing a story based upon the ritual with the lamb.

I think we will end up making foul. Our last unit was on Israel, so we have already made falafel. I am also going to see if I can find some cheap backlavah.

I may also do a drink with Pomegranite juice cut down with some Sprite. Not exactly authentic, but close. I had something similar in Jordan about a decade ago.

My class knows that people all over the world are helping us find new foods They want to know all about you!

[Pan]

Maybe some of them would like to join and post some meal reports on your Egyptian feast?

[hillvalley]

Maybe some of them would like to join and post some meal reports on your Egyptian feast?

Hahahahahahaha

You're assuming they know how to write!!! I'm good, but I'm not that good

I'll let you know what they think, but don't get your hopes up. We are celebrating Valentine's Day later in the day, so I have a feeling Egyptian food is going to be a let down. Then again, I could walk in with pizza (their favorite) and it would probably be a let down, considering they know about all the candy I have bought.

While I would rather eat baklahvah over necco hearts any day, I am the minority in the classroom. Then again, I like my fish raw.

[Jason Perlow]

Pomegranite Shirley Temples! What a great idea.

I love ST's and make a grown up version with vanilla vodka. If only I could introduce my class to that.

Well, Grenadine, the key component of the Shirley Temple, is made from reduced pomegranate juice.

[hillvalley]

I had no idea! Much easier and cheaper than pomegranite juice! It's perfect too, for Valentine's Day

[Jason Perlow]

Yeah, but actually, I've made Shirley Temples recently with pomegranate juice mixed with 7-UP and they were really, really good.