بِسْــــــــــــــــــــــمِ اﷲِارَّحْمَنِ ارَّحِيم
السلام عليكم و رحمة الله و بركاته
Marhaba - Welcome! If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed, check out the Recipe Index. Or follow me on the social network Facebook. Thanks for visiting!
Do you remember Egypt? The land of pharaohs and pyramides. And much more recent times, prehaps you remember the Egyptians flooded Cairo’s Tahrir Square protesting their 30 year autocratic rule. Yes, that Egypt. I read an article a few years ago in Food & Wine Magazine (Feb 2012 issue) where food writer Salma Abdelnour made the comment,
“I hope one result of all the eyes on Egypt will be a renewed interest in its culture, including its food traditions.”
So what is Egyptian food?
According to Eric Monkaba, founder of Cairo based cooking school Qasr Twenty it’s the cooking of housewives, not haute restaurant cuisine or even street food. It’s cooking by hand, grinding spices with a mortar and pestle, chopping with a makharata (double mezzaluna), and the carefully stirring a pot of soup as it simmers. Egyptian cuisine makes heavy use of legumes and vegetables, due to the rich and fertile Nile valley and delta. Although food in the northern city of Alexandria and on the Egyptian coast tends to make use of the fresh Mediteranean fish and other seafood, for the most part Egyptian cuisine relies heavily on vegetable based dishes. Meat has been very expensive for most Egyptians throughout history, and many vegetarian dishes have developed to work around this economic reality. Egyptian cuisine is characterized by dishes such as "Foul Muddames", mashed fava bean dish; "Koshari, a mixture of lentils, rice, pasta, topped with spicy tomato sauce; "Mloukhiya", Jew's mallow (jute leaves) stewed in a garlicy coriander sauce; "Fatta", a layered pita bread casserole and "F'tir Meshaltet", a pillowy layered pastry somewhat similar to our own Algerian msemmen. Egyptian cuisine also shares similarities with food of the Eastern Mediterranean region, such as rice-stuffed vegetables (aka dolma) , grape leaves, charwarma, couscous, kebab, falafel, baba ghannouj and syrupy desserts such as baklava.
the beauty of the egyptian kitchen
very informative and very delicious post !!
ReplyDeleteLoved the fried onions on the soup, an interesting idea, yummy.
ReplyDeleteI agree those just made it.
DeleteThis looks gorgeous! Love the crispy onions, yummy.
ReplyDeleteThank you Madiha for stopping by. I see how popular this soup has become in the group :)
ReplyDeleteAs usual looking deliciously lovely sis Henia
ReplyDeletexx aicha
Gorgeous soup, great vibrant color you got. And love the presentation and toppings.
ReplyDeleteOkay, wow mashAllah you have out done yourself. Perfect picture, article and it just looks good. Yes, I am licking my screen now lol.
ReplyDeleteG'day a beautiful post that caused me to smile today!
ReplyDeleteWondering photo and recipe!
Glad to have met you through MENA; following on FB!
Cheers! Thanks for sharing your Egyptian recipe this month too!
Joanne @ What's On The List
Assalam Alaykom Madiha,
ReplyDeleteYou've done a great job dear, I love your presentation so much. Thanks for joining in this month.
Sorry I meant Henia ... donno why I called you Madiha :) anyways I keep calling my kids' with eachother's names!!!! Anyways, thanks again for joining us and I really do like your blog's colors and contents.
ReplyDelete