Recettes Egypt

Egyptian Kofta

Kofta is minced meat, seasoned and shaped by hand, and it runs across an enormous stretch of the world: from the Balkans through Turkey, the Levant and Egypt, across the Arabian peninsula, into Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, and along the North African coast. The Egyptian version is lamb or beef with onion, parsley, mint and a warm spice mix, moulded onto skewers and grilled. Its written history is old. Recipes appear in the earliest surviving Arab cookbooks, where large ground lamb meatballs were glazed in saffron and egg yolk, a technique that later reached Europe and was known there as gilding or endoring. From the Arab world it travelled east, and nargisi kofta was served at the Mughal court in India. In Egypt, kofta belongs to the grilled meat restaurants that exist in every town, where it is cooked alongside kebab, grilled chicken and tarb and served with rice, bread and salad. The distinction Egyptians draw between kofta and kebab is worth knowing: kebab is cubed meat on a skewer, kofta is minced meat shaped by hand. It is essentially sausage without a casing, and the comparison to a hamburger, sometimes made, misses that it is almost never served in bread.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hrEasyEgypt · Mali

Recette de Cuisine228 · Africook

Kawaree (Cow Feet)

Kawaree is Egyptian calf's feet cooked with chickpeas until the meat falls from the bone and the broth turns thick with gelatin. It belongs to the older end of the Egyptian repertoire, and Egyptians are direct about the fact that it appeals more to their parents' generation than to their own. It is served in more than one way, and each has its own name. Kawaree fettah puts it over rice with tomato sauce, in the manner of the wider fattah tradition where bread or rice sits under a rich meat and broth. It is also eaten alongside stuffed vine leaves, and the intended technique there is specific: a piece of kawaree and one vine leaf in the same mouthful, so the gelatinous richness and the sharp stuffed leaf arrive together. The dish belongs to a family that runs across the region. Sudanese kawari uses sheep or cattle hooves with cinnamon, cardamom and cloves. Moroccan hergma is spiced with ginger, paprika and chilli and finished with rice. Turkish fasulyeli paça uses white beans in place of chickpeas and no turmeric at all. All are the same principle handled by different kitchens, and all exist because a foot yields a great deal from almost nothing.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

EasyEgypt

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Tarb (Grilled Kofta Wrapped in Lamb Fat)

Tarb is kofta wrapped in caul fat and grilled, and the caul is what the dish is named for. Tarb is the Egyptian word for the lacy membrane of fat that surrounds a lamb's stomach, and wrapping seasoned minced lamb in it produces something that ordinary kofta cannot: the fat renders during cooking, bastes the meat from the outside in, and crisps to a golden shell. Its occasion is Eid al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, and the connection is direct rather than customary. Eid al-Adha involves the slaughter of an animal and the distribution of its meat, and caul fat is one of the parts that becomes available when a whole lamb is broken down at home. A dish built on caul is a dish that belongs to the moment when a whole animal is being used, which is why tarb appears then and rarely otherwise. Kofta itself runs across Egypt and the whole Middle East, minced meat with onion, parsley and spices, formed and grilled. Tarb is the version that takes it somewhere richer, and Egyptians treat it as a heavy dish for a family celebration rather than everyday food. It is found in the grilled meat restaurants that specialise in kofta, kebab and grilled chicken across Egypt, served with rice or pasta.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hr 55 minMediumEgypt

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Egyptian Koshari

Koshari is Egypt's national dish and its most famous street food, rice, lentils and macaroni layered together, topped with a spiced tomato sauce, crisp fried onions and a sharp garlic-vinegar dressing. It is a dish of components, and none of them is complicated. What makes koshari work is that all of them are made separately and assembled at the end, so each keeps its own texture: the rice and lentils soft, the pasta firm, the onions properly crisp, the sauce sharp with vinegar and cumin. It is cheap, filling and entirely plant-based as standard, which is why it feeds an enormous number of people every day. Koshari shops exist across Egypt doing nothing else, and it is eaten as often at home. Its ubiquity is genuine, the comparison to macaroni cheese in the source is about how ordinary it is rather than what it tastes like. The daqqa, the garlic and vinegar dressing, is what stops the whole thing being stodgy, and it is the element most often underdone by people making it for the first time. Be generous with it. Chickpeas are usually added on top.

41 minMediumEgypt

Recette de Blessing · Africook