El Andalous - Egyptian Food

View From the Flat Where we Ate

I quite often get asked what the traditional food is in Egypt. My reply is that the national dish is stuffed pigeon, which I’ve never tried (I have had camel, but I get the sense it’s on menus more for the novelty value than as a genuine local dish). I’m off this week to El Dar Darek for a meal, so maybe I’ll try a stuffed pigeon then. I believe they’re quite small, so can probably be taken as a starter. At least, last time I was in Dar Darek, the men behind us had a plateful of about two each served before other platters were brought out with hefty servings of red meat.

Anyway, I went to a cooking class this week and it turned out that we were mostly cooking Egyptian food. When I say cooking class, it’s really a group of us getting together at someone’s house and cooking lunch together. Last time I went to one of these events, I didn’t even help out (too many cooks and all that).

I was put in the mahshi group and we made stuffed cabbage leaves, which is very traditional over here (along with other stuffed vegetables – I’ve read that mahshi means stuffed and can apply to other vegetables, although I believe in Egypt cabbage leaves are the most traditional). They don’t sound very appetising, but they are truly delicious.

Preparing them is a bit of a faff and the organizer brought the rice ready-spiced (but not cooked, which I found quite odd, but that's how it's done) and the cabbage leaves pre-cooked. We just had to roll the rice in the cabbage leaves like little cigars and then put them into the pot with the stock to cook. Like all cooking, I guess it’s all in the spices you use and I guess the broth for the rice. There seemed to be a bit of an art to getting the right amount of rice in the rolled cabbage leaf (too much and they will explode as the rice expands when you cook it; too little and you’ll just have a mouthful of cabbage). 

It really is very time consuming since you have the preparing beforehand and then all the time rolling the leaves. Apparently, Egyptian women will spend the evening in front of the TV doing this.

I can’t take responsibility for the end result, but really it was superb. There were also stuffed aubergines (also very yummy), kofta, and a spicy lentil-type dish.

The dessert was a typical Egyptian item called Gabl Al Hareem (beautiful mountain, apparently, although I thought gameel was beautiful in Arabic, thus illustrating yet again the difficulty of learning Arabic). It was pumpkin, mashed presumably with some sugar, and then béchamel sauce on top. You eat it hot. I’d never heard of it before (I’ve eaten Om Ali, which is a bread pudding with nuts and raisins and is also very tasty and quite filling). However, quite a few were already familiar with Gabl Al Hareem (and the Egyptians knew it, of course) and were very excited to be eating it again. I don't think there were any leftovers.

All in all, a very pleasant day!