Taste Egypt
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Beans, rice, greens and a street kitchen that invented more than the tourist koshari stall. Breakfast can be a bowl of ful and still be a complete idea.
Ful medames is slow fava beans with oil, cumin, lemon — morning food that does not hurry. Koshari is a Cairene mountain of rice, lentils, pasta, chickpeas, tomato sauce and fried onion, cheap and serious. Ta'ameya is fava falafel, green inside, a different fritter from the Levantine chickpea version. Mahshi is stuffed vegetables, rice and herb, a home-cook's patience. Fatteh is toasted bread, rice, meat or chickpeas, vinegar-garlic, a festive layering. Shawarma turned on a spit is an urban craft Egypt shares with the wider region. Molokhia is a slippery green stew that frightens only people who need their soup thick with cream. Nile fish and pastry counters are the rest of the week.
9 recipes · 1 cuisine
Essential dishes
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Further Egypt listings, including shorter editorial recipes and imported methods.
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Regional cuisines
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Take the Egypt food quizFood history
Nile agriculture, Coptic fasting, Arab, Ottoman and Mediterranean trade. Koshari is a nineteenth- to twentieth-century urban mix — lentils, rice, pasta, tomato — not an ancient royal recipe. Beans and bread are older than any of the restaurant names. Italian and Indian workers are sometimes credited with pasta and spiced rice in koshari; the exact genealogy is messier than a plaque. Home cooking still stuffs vegetables and simmers greens. Street carts remain a primary kitchen, not a novelty.