Modern culinary Egypt is a mixture of many traditional cuisines of ancient pharaohs, Arabs, Nubians, Turks, Europeans. It will be comfortable for those who love legumes, and also prefer cheeses and dairy products – the national Egyptian cuisine is based on these ingredients. Of course, food is also served here, designed for a capricious tourist: so that the stomach is comfortable, and with signs of local flavor. You can limit yourself to the tourist menu, or you can try real traditional Egyptian dishes and expand your gastronomic scope.
Mulukiya
Mulukia is a dish around which real Egyptian passions boil. In the XNUMXth century, Fatimid Caliph Al Hakim Bi-Amrom Allah forbade cooking and eating it, and to this day, some religious groups support this prohibition, while others consider it in vain.
Mulukia is a soup, and the main ingredient is jute leaves. Beef, rabbit, lamb, local herbs and spices are added to the broth. Soup with bread or rice is served.
Tarot
The taro soup has many recipe variations, but the main ingredient is taro tubers, a plant native to Southeast Asia. The tubers are peeled and boiled in meat broth with garlic and coriander. Then the soup is mashed and served with bread. Tarot is served during the Coptic Christian feast of the Epiphany.
Kushari
This national dish is considered vegetarian and is made with pasta, tomato sauce, rice, lentils, caramelized onions, garlic and chickpeas. High-carbohydrate kushari is especially popular at lunchtime for its great rejuvenating properties and is sold at street food eateries. At first glance, kushari looks like a mixture of incompatible ingredients, but it’s worth trying this hearty, distinctive Egyptian food.
Full of honey
Full medames – beans with the addition of vegetable oil, garlic and lemon juice. The dish appeared during the time of the ancient pharaohs of the 12th dynasty – the recipe is about 4 thousand years old. Then a pot of beans was buried in hot sand, and the concept of “medames” in Coptic meant as “buried.” Full medames is eaten in its pure form with bread. Modern full medames is complemented with many other ingredients – butter, tomato sauce, tahini, fried or boiled eggs and pastrama.
Fesik
Fesik is traditionally served in Egypt during the Sham el-Nessim festival, which has been celebrated every spring since the days of the pharaohs. The ingredients of the dish are fermented salted and dried mullet. The fish is dried in the sun and salted. Fesik is prepared by a specially trained person – fasakani. If you cook the fesik incorrectly, you can get poisoned with it.
Kunafa
The recipe for kunafa is shrouded in a mystery of origin. The traditional Egyptian dessert is mentioned in the books of Turkey and Lebanon during the Middle Ages and in the collection of fairy tales “A Thousand and One Nights”, where kunafa is presented with bee honey. Kunafu is made from very thin noodles – the batter is applied in a thin layer on a hot pan and waited for it to acquire a golden hue and become crispy. Then it is mixed with butter, butter or vegetable, and stuffed with nuts, whipped cream, cream is wrapped in it, baked and served with fruit syrup and bitter coffee.
Fatta
Fatta is necessarily prepared in honor of an important event of the Egyptians – the birth of a child, for Christian, Muslim holidays. Fatta – layers of rice and fried bread, which are poured into meat soup with garlic and vinegar. Due to its high calorie content and the presence of meat and eggs, it is forbidden to eat fatta during fasting.
Movable domiati
Gibna domiati is a soft white cheese made in the city of Dumyat in northern Egypt. Cheese is prepared from buffalo milk, but some recipes also contain cow’s milk. Prepared cheese is added to many Egyptian traditional dishes, but it is also eaten as an independent snack. Gibna domiati is aged in large jars for 3 years and many families take pride in their cheese stock.
Dukka
Dukka is an addition to vegetable dishes and flat cakes. The dish consists of a mixture of herbs, nuts and spices – mint, salt, sesame seeds, cumin and coriander. Each family has its own recipe for dukka, and the name of the dish is translated from Arabic as “crush”.
Halva
In every country in the world, halva is prepared in its own way. The Egyptian version is made from sesame paste with the addition of pistachios, pine nuts, and almonds. Halva is eaten not only as a separate dessert, but also added to other dishes, mixed with cream, honey and other dessert ingredients.