After a brief stay in Slovakia we headed south to Egypt. Week 1 had been successful. No cuts, contusions, lacerations, burns or any other minor kitchen disasters. We learned that it wasn’t the dishes themselves that were difficult to make, but the rare ingredients and spices that were hard to find. Where does one find Tahini Paste? Furthermore, what is Tahini paste? Tahini Paste, or Sesame Paste, is a paste made of ground sesame seeds. Would we ever use it again? The more involved we became in the research for each country, the more we saw common trends of ingredients between region.
How did we arrive in Egypt? As ridiculous as our Conquest is - we do have a method. We choose our next country at random as our current trip comes to a close. Using the CIA World FactBook app on our Robot phone, we swipe and stop on a country in the list, eyes shut. We cannot visit the same continent twice in a row.
Egypt was particularly exciting, invoking thoughts of hot sand, ancient pyramids and black eyeliner. The start of civilization, the invention of the calendar year, the 24-hour day, pen, paper, glass, cement, wine cellars, brewing practices, organized religion, irrigation... It was deep. We got a little ahead of ourselves in trying to honor an epic country with an epic night.
So...let’s try an extensive five course, fully involved, Egyptian buffet. After some tapas of grapes, honey, hummus, cheese, and pita we started our first course of Fasolia Khadra Lil Salata (Fresh Green Bean Salad). This salad is a fantastic summer salad. It’s light, crisp, and refreshing compared to most of our heavy American salads.
The next dish, Kushari, was a traditional Egyptian meal great for those of us who are desperately looking for an escape from the ‘pasta in jar’ so commonly available at the super market. Here might be a good place to add that 3 common spices in Egyptian cooking are cumin, cinnamon and baharat spice. It was an excellent variation on Americanized dishes.
The highlight of the evening was definitely the Mashi-Phil-Phil (Stuffed Peppers). Apart from an awesome name, these peppers were stuffed with much more than meat and rice. They contained an ingredient that made wine disappear. You see, the worst part about these peppers is that they take FOREVER to cook. As the scent of stuffed pepper deliciousness filled the kitchen, we bonded over wine and good stories.
To finish off the evening we had‘Molasses with Tahini’ served with pita. For those of you that have had Nutella, it was very similar.The Arabic Jams were provided by:Egyptian Radio
Until next week, we say Fee sihetak!
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