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Egyptian recipes

13 Egyptian recipes to cook at home, each with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Baladi salad, takes 10 minutes. Most take around 60 minutes.

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Koshari

Koshari is the dish of Cairo's streets: whole shops, from Abou Tarek downtown to small corner counters, sell nothing else, and office workers queue for a metal bowl of it at lunchtime. Brown lentils and rice are cooked together, then piled with macaroni, vermicelli and chickpeas, drowned in a sharp cumin-tomato sauce and finished with dakka (garlic vinegar), shatta (chilli sauce) and a heap of dark fried onions. It is cheap, filling and naturally vegan, and every Egyptian eats it differently, so put the sauces on the table. Chef's tip: fry the onions first and cook everything else in their oil; that onion-scented oil is what makes koshari taste like the shops' and not like a plate of separate leftovers.

75 minRice & GrainsVegan
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Molokhia

Molokhia is one of the oldest dishes on the Egyptian table, eaten across the country from Alexandria to Upper Egypt, usually at a family lunch with white rice and torn baladi bread. The finely minced leaves of the jute plant cook in stock in minutes into a bright green, gently slippery soup; at the end a ta'leya of garlic and ground coriander fried in oil is poured in with a loud hiss. Most families cook it with chicken or rabbit broth, but a well-flavoured vegetable stock makes a lovely, light vegan version. Frozen minced molokhia from Middle Eastern grocers is what most Cairo cooks use too. Chef's tip: some cooks take a sharp breath (the shahqa) as the ta'leya goes in; joke or not, the point is to pour it in while the garlic is still sizzling hot.

30 minSoupsVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Mesaqa'a

Mesaqa'a shares a name with Greek moussaka but is a different dish: there's no béchamel and no cheese, just fried aubergine slices baked in a garlicky tomato sauce with green peppers and chilli until soft and jammy. In Cairo it is a weekday family dish and a favourite during the summer heat and in the Coptic fasting seasons, when many families eat no animal products; it tastes even better the next day at room temperature, scooped up with baladi bread. Chef's tip: salt the aubergine and press it dry, then roast or shallow-fry it until truly golden; pale aubergine makes a watery, grey mesaqa'a.

70 minVegetarianVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Mahshi

Mahshi is the pride of the Egyptian home kitchen: a big pot of courgettes, small aubergines, peppers and tomatoes, hollowed out and stuffed with short-grain rice, tomato, onion and a fistful of dill, parsley and coriander, then packed tightly and simmered in tomato broth. It turns up for Friday family lunches and on feast days, and making it is often a shared afternoon job around the kitchen table. Some families add minced meat to the stuffing; this version is the everyday vegetable-and-rice one. Chef's tip: fill each vegetable only three-quarters full; the rice swells as it cooks, and overstuffed vegetables burst and leave hard, undercooked rice in the middle.

120 minVegetarianVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Feteer meshaltet

Feteer meshaltet comes from the villages of the Nile Delta, in Sharqia, Menoufia and around, where it is baked for weddings, feast days and for guests, and sent home with visitors in a cloth. A soft dough is stretched paper-thin, brushed with lots of ghee or butter and folded over and over into a round that bakes into dozens of crisp, flaky layers. Eat it warm, torn with your hands, dipped in honey or 'asal eswed (sugar-cane molasses) or with white cheese and olives. Chef's tip: let the dough balls rest in butter until they feel loose and silky; dough that hasn't relaxed tears when you stretch it, and torn dough is the most common reason a feteer comes out tough.

90 minBreads & Parathas
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Eggah

Eggah is the omelette Egyptian families make at home for breakfast or a light supper, often on a Friday morning alongside ful, falafel, cheese and baladi bread. It is thick and set rather than folded, packed with spring onion, parsley and dill and warmed with cumin, and it's cooked slowly so it puffs and browns on both sides. Slice it into wedges and eat it hot from the pan or cold in a sandwich. Chef's tip: grate the onion and squeeze it dry; wet onion makes the eggs weep and the eggah falls apart when you flip it.

25 minBreakfast & BrunchGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Baladi salad

Salata baladi, the 'country salad', is on every Egyptian table, from Cairo koshari shops to Alexandria fish restaurants and home lunches, next to the rice and bread. It is finely diced tomato, cucumber, onion and green chilli, with a little parsley, a big squeeze of lemon and a pinch of cumin that makes it taste Egyptian rather than Levantine. It takes ten minutes and cuts through rich food like molokhia or mahshi. Chef's tip: dice everything small, about the size of a chickpea, so each spoonful carries a bit of everything.

10 minSaladsVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Torly

Torly is a tray of mixed vegetables (potatoes, courgettes, carrots, green beans, peas, peppers) baked in a tomato and garlic sauce until soft and slightly caramelised at the edges. The name is Turkish, a reminder of Ottoman times, but it has long been an everyday Egyptian home dish, usually cooked when the summer markets are full of courgettes and served with white rice or vermicelli rice. Many families add meat; this meat-free version is just as common in fasting seasons. Chef's tip: cut the potatoes and carrots smaller than the courgettes, so everything is tender at the same moment.

75 minVegetarianVeganGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Roz bel laban

Roz bel laban (rice with milk) is the pudding of Egyptian homes and dessert shops alike, sold in clay pots and little foil cups across Cairo and eaten all year, especially in the evenings of Ramadan. It is made with short Egyptian rice cooked slowly in milk, thickened with a little cornflour so it sets creamy and spoonable, and scented with vanilla or orange blossom water. This is the roz bel laban fel forn version, finished in a very hot oven so the top blisters with brown spots, the way the Cairo dessert shops sell it. Serve it cold, scattered with pistachios or coconut. Chef's tip: stir the cornflour into cold milk before adding it; dropped straight into the hot pot it turns into lumps you can't whisk out.

45 minDessertsGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Qatayef

Qatayef only really appear in Egypt during Ramadan: in the weeks of the fast, street vendors in Cairo and Alexandria set up big griddles and pour rows of small pancakes that are cooked on one side only, then sold by the kilo for families to fill at home. The pale, bubbly side is folded around chopped nuts and raisins (or a creamy ashta filling), sealed into half-moons, baked or fried until crisp and dipped in syrup. They are eaten after iftar with tea. Chef's tip: cook the pancakes on one side only and don't flip them; the uncooked top stays sticky and is what glues the edges shut.

60 minDesserts
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Sahlab

Sahlab is what Cairo drinks on a cold winter evening: a thick, sweet, steaming glass of milk sold in cafés and from street carts, topped with cinnamon, coconut, chopped nuts and a few raisins, and eaten as much with a spoon as drunk. The original thickener is powdered orchid root, which is now rare and protected, so most Egyptian households and many cafés use cornflour or a ready-made sahlab mix instead, as here. Chef's tip: keep whisking from the moment the thickened milk goes in until it boils; stop for a minute and it catches on the bottom of the pan and tastes scorched.

13 minDrinksGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Hawawshi

Walk through downtown Cairo in the evening and you will smell hawawshi before you see it: round baladi breads split open, packed with minced beef, onion, green chilli and warm spices, then baked until the bread turns crisp and the fat from the meat soaks into the crumb. Street stalls sell it wrapped in paper with pickles and tahini; at home it is a quick Friday supper. Pitta works well if you can't find baladi bread. The mistake most people make is packing in too thick a layer of meat, so the bread burns before the middle is cooked; keep it about 1 cm thick. Chef's tip: squeeze the grated onion in a sieve before mixing it in, or the filling turns wet and the bread goes soggy.

40 minFast Food
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Bamia bil lahma

Bamia is on every Egyptian family table from Alexandria to Aswan, usually on a weekday with a plate of vermicelli rice. Chunks of lamb on the bone are simmered until tender, then baby okra is cooked in the rich tomato broth with garlic fried in ghee and fresh coriander, a finish called the ta'leya. The sauce is loose, sweet-sour and silky. The common mistake is cutting the okra pods open before cooking, which lets out the slime; trim only the very top of each cap. Chef's tip: fry the okra briefly in a hot pan before it goes into the stew so it holds its shape and stays bright green.

120 minCurriesGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

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