Recettes Egypt

Ghorayebah

Ghorayebah is the Egyptian butter cookie, made with ghee and almost nothing else, and its whole character is texture. It is barely sweet, pale to the point of being off-white, and it disintegrates the moment it is bitten. Four ingredients make it: ghee, icing sugar, flour and a little vanilla, with baking powder for a very slight lift. The classic Egyptian version is flavoured with nothing beyond the ghee itself, which is the point of it. Elsewhere in the Arab world, in Syria and Lebanon particularly, it is flavoured with orange blossom and rose water, is slightly crunchier, and is pronounced graybeh. It also goes by ghraybeh and ghoraybeh. The comparison usually made is shortbread without the crunch, and that is fair as far as it goes. What ghorayebah has that shortbread does not is a fine, almost powdery crumb and a smooth finish with a faintly fuzzy outer surface. Two things produce it: ghee rather than butter, which contains no water, and a very low oven that dries the cookie without colouring it. It must not brown. A clove pressed into the centre of each is the traditional finish.

45 minEasyEgypt

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

Feteer Meshaltet (Egyptian Layered Pastry)

Feteer meshaltet is an Egyptian pastry made by stretching dough until it is almost transparent, brushing it with butter, folding it, and repeating until it consists of a great many paper-thin layers. It is baked in a very hot oven and eaten either plain with honey, molasses and tahini, or filled with anything from cheese to minced meat to custard. The name means something like flattened or stretched pie, and that describes the method exactly. The dough is not rolled, it is stretched by hand until the surface below is visible through it, then folded with butter between every layer. What produces the texture is the butter turning to steam between the layers in a very hot oven and forcing them apart, which is the same physics as puff pastry arrived at by a completely different route. The oven temperature the source calls for looks like an error and is not, it is far above ordinary baking heat. Feteer needs that to puff before the layers set, and Egyptian bakeries use wood-fired ovens hotter still. A domestic oven at its maximum with the broiler finishing the top is the practical approximation. It has a long and reasonably well-attested history, the source traces it to ancient Egypt, where a version was offered in temples. Its claim that feteer became the croissant in Europe is repeated widely but not established, and it has been recorded here as a claim rather than a fact.

1 hr 25 minHardEgypt

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Om Ali (Egyptian Bread Pudding)

Om Ali is Egypt's most beloved dessert, a warm, sweet pudding made from torn pieces of puff pastry or bread baked in sweetened milk with nuts, coconut, and raisins until golden and bubbling. It sits somewhere between a bread pudding and a milk-soaked pastry and manages to be simultaneously comforting and festive. The dish is a fixture of Egyptian restaurants, home celebrations, and Ramadan gatherings, where it is often served in communal baking dishes at the end of a large meal. Despite its simplicity, Om Ali manages to taste luxurious, the puff pastry creates layered, crispy edges while the centre remains soft and creamy with the absorbed milk.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hrEasyEgypt · Middle Eastern

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

Balah El Sham

Balah el sham is fried choux pastry soaked in syrup, and it is one of the desserts Egyptians most associate with childhood. It is piped into short lengths through a star nozzle, fried until golden and ridged, then dropped into cool sugar syrup, which seeps into every groove. The name translates from Arabic as Levant dates, and it contains no dates at all. It is called that for its size and shape, and Sham for the Levant region where it originated. It is eaten across much of the Middle East and in parts of Eastern Europe under other names, and the closest familiar comparison is churros, with one important difference: churros are rolled in cinnamon sugar, while balah el sham is submerged in syrup. Choux is the technique, and it is the same pastry used for éclairs and profiteroles. Flour is cooked into hot liquid until it forms a ball and turns glossy, then eggs are beaten in off the heat, one at a time. What is unusual here is that it is fried rather than baked, which gives a crisp ridged shell around a hollow, airy centre. It is often split and filled with cream, custard, mascarpone, chocolate or nuts, and pistachios on top are standard. It can be eaten hot or cold.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

50 minMediumEgypt

Recette de FoodChef · Africook