Egypt Recipes
What do you know about the Recipes and Homemaking of this country? Please place your experiences here. For more info see the index.
The most famous Egyptian dishes is "foul"which is beans and also "Ta'mia" or flafel as it famous for in west,both of these dishes are very popular as breakfast because they are relatively cheap,they are legumes which contain protein so they stay alot in the stomach making the person not feel hungry fast.
The main meal in Egypt is actually launch not dinner from the the dishes that are really famous and popular is "mahshi" which is mainly a stuffing of rice and vegetables rolled in various things could be pepper or cabbage or egg plant, also there is "molokhia" which is some kind of vegetables it's more particularly leaves it gets chopped cooked with garlic and soap it's soo delicious...
There are some dishes associated with certain occasions like religious holiday we make some sort of cookies in the holiday right after ramadan which called"Ka'k"
and there are plenty of other associated dishes in other holidays like "Roukak" and ducks...
I think I will do well with Egyptian food since peas and rice is one of my favorite dishes. Do some of these dishes originate even from the time of the Pharaohs or is it modern Egyptian cooking?
Well..you would think you will do well with Egyptian food ,but there is a warning most of Egyptian food is soooo not figure friendly even what would be conseidered the healthiest food like vegetables it's cooked with tomato sauce which gets really thickened on the stove with butter and it's eaten with rice which also cooked by butter and some fried pasta-like thing with it..
I think it has been like 2months since the last time I ate Ta'mia,you'd never beleive how bad heart-burn it can give you
I don't know if any of the foods we eat now gets back to the age of pharaos but all what I mentioned is from modern Egyptian kitchen not that modern though these are the traditional foods now there are more varities but I think they are inspired from other kitchens around the world.
Edited: pinkmercury on 1st Jan, 2009 - 10:22pm
That meal you described is also called "Koshary"? I guess every country has it's unhealthy meals which are merely for taste, but usually taste and health are two separate things. Are meats a main part of the dishes, if so what kind of meat?
What I described wasn't Koshari it's the regular rice we cook and it's cooked with pasta-like thing which is from the pasta dough but very small and very fine called "Sh'rya" we fry it in butter then add the rice then add salt and water and let the rice cook in that.
Koshari consists of rice made by the previous way +pasta+lentils+fried onions on the top which maybe accompanied by hommus+hot tomato sauce+some other sauce which consists mainly of garlic....eat it and let me know if there any survivors actually it's very very popular in Egypt that there are some shops specifically for it,it's relatively cheap,tasty,it surely can guarantee you won't need to eat soon after eating it.
About meat,all sources of meat like veil or birds like chicken and ducks are sort of expensive so alot of people don't eat it all the time and animal sourced food is conseidered the highest kind of foods so it's highly desirable by anyone here but traditionally it's cooked by the simplest ways ever boiled to have some soup with it
Birds the traditional way to cook it is to clean it well stuff it with rice ,boil it ,then finally fry it.
The most common birds chicken,ducks,peigones they can be cooked with pasta or mahshi.
The price of chicken is not by the number,it's by the kilo and right now it costs about 10 pounds which means almost 2 US dollars and this could seem a little for you but compared with the income here it's considered high when it's for a doctor working in a hospital that is for government would take salary 300 pounds or something as a starting salary, and similar to that for teachers and pharmacists
So salaries here can't do much and most of people depend on other sources of money like trading,working in 2 or 3 jobs,depending on rent money coming from property,private work...stuff like that
the kilo of meat costs these day about 43 pounds or something which is about 4.5 dollars I guess that would tell you why is meat here highly desirable as food.
Desserts are disasters very very rich in calories and sugars like "Basbousa",cakes,"Ba'lawa","Gollash" most of these things are mainly pasteries with syrup"sugar concentrated with water and boiled"
for drinks,mainly TEA,TEA,TEA after meals, as breakfast with milk tea all the time
and to less extent soda and juice.