Browned Orzo Pudding

“Chili sauce? But where’s the ketchup?” I huffed and puffed at my bag of artery-blocking fries, limp after their trip to me on the back of a motorbike. Only having started to eat ketchup recently, I could not understand why my new home at the time, Kuala Lumpur, was not delivering on my need to fit into the ketchup-dunking French fry-eating globalized world of 2008. Surely I could not yet be expected to accustom my tongue to rojak (a mixture of fruit and a zingy shrimp paste dressing) when I was still so fresh off the Boeing.

When I ordered what I like to call the Cholesterol Special, I expected a thick double cheeseburger and fries with a side of the all-important pseudoplastic ketchup. No sweet chili sauces lay seductively in my fantasies and no downsized buns; but reality put them both in my path along with fried chicken that had none of the classic MSG-laden peppery KFC flavor. Instead, they were pushing something called “Tom Yum Crunch” for a limited time only that seemed to last for a lifetime and which was similar on your tongue to Chipsy’s unpleasant chili-lime flavor, industrial and heavy.

Now, let’s dismiss the fact that I was indulging in disgustingly corporate fast food in the largest of sizes, and in its place focus on the customization of fast food chains. Why couldn’t I find what I was looking for at a chain that was supposed to offer me the same product worldwide?

In my annoyance as a customer, I forgot about my background in advertising and that these corporations were willing to shake off some of their roots to embrace new cuisines thus achieving “market penetration” via bizarre offerings like the McArabia in the Middle East and the McSatay in Indonesia. It wasn’t their fault. I was just in the wrong “me” society — one that demands of companies to tailor their products to the culture to survive and dominate. I felt completely left out.

As featured in The Egypt Monocle

Amidst rethinking my relationship with ketchup and my taking it for granted at my neighborhood McDonald’s, I decided that I would teach myself to eat better, leap into the food culture that was presented to me and to eventually customize our own Egyptian recipes to tame, reinterpret or enhance the flavors for my Southeast Asian dinner guests.

This lasted a while and out of it came a remodeled koshari pasta dish without the added heaviness of the rice, a fillet of sole en papillote with dukkah, a brûléed lemon mehalabia and poached pears in spiced karkadeh among other things; but then it stopped and I became corporate, uniform, bland.

I took the easy way out: pesto pastas and brownie variations; recipes that you could easily find elsewhere; food that despite enjoying never became “me”. Like those fast food corporations, I did as I chose until I gained approval and found demand for ease, convenience and comfort.

So I’m slacking no longer, at least for as long as it lasts. I’m shaking up those old recipes I’m bored of and I’ll try not to be much of the staunch traditionalist that I’ve gradually become. I’ve already managed to embrace all the sweet chili sauces that have been thrown my way and will watch out for international interpretations of local favorites. Zooba in Zamalek has been doing it for a bit now and it’s about time we begin to experiment with what we’ve got, using the influx of new ingredients on the Egyptian market.

Browned Orzo Pudding

(Makes 4 small or 2 medium sized servings)
You’ll need:
½ cup of orzo
1 tablespoon of ghee
1½ cup of milk
¼ cup of sugar
3 large grains of mastic, crushed
½ a teaspoon of ground cloves
Zest of ¼ of an orange
1 heaped teaspoon of cornstarch + 3 tablespoons of cold water

In a medium-sized pot, melt the ghee on medium heat. When hot, add the orzo and fry in the ghee, stirring constantly until golden brown. Add the milk and bring to a gentle boil then turn your heat down, add the mastic, clove and orange zest then leave to simmer for around 7 minutes. Add the sugar and stir to incorporate. In a small bowl, add the cornstarch to the cold water and stir to dissolve. Pour your cornstarch mixture into the pot and again, stir to combine. Leave to cook for another 3 minutes or until the orzo is cooked through and al dente. The pudding should start to hold on the spoon. Pour into individual bowls and serve warm or refrigerate for at least an hour then serve cold.

Lunchbox Pasta: Pesto Pasta Salad

As featured in The Egypt Monocle

My lunch box was not a friend. I didn’t bond with it, would not look forward to hearing it snap open and found no pleasure in its content. Considering it a waste of my arm’s energy, I slugged it over to school reluctantly, with a new trick I had learned — the eye roll. The only thing I liked about it was that I’d choose a new one each year, reflecting my ever-morphing personality through brightly colored images glued onto boxed plastic.

In the first grade, I was dubbed a “cookie monster”, protesting against sandwiches until I was allowed to carry only cookies. That bit of excitement didn’t last long. The lunch box tradition died out as I got taller but a persistent packed lunch was shoved into my backpack pocket by mom; and when I’d return home, intact sandwich and bagged apple would be stuffed in secrecy into a deep corner of my desk, left to darken and rot.

Lunch boxes came back to haunt me in 2010. My two stepchildren, wanting to fit into their new school — a melting pot of nationalities, were heavily depending on me to do their lunch boxes justice, to compete with moms preparing tiffins packed neatly with fresh parathas, curried vegetables and a side of mango pickle. Sandwiches just weren’t going to do the trick when the kids are coming back with stories of snacking on seaweed with a Korean friend during recess.

So I pushed back with pasta salads, homemade burgers and juice boxes that doubled as ice packs on hot days; and on rainy days, a bowl of packed rice, slow-cooked beef and root vegetables then for later, a mini dessert muffin. On occasion, the leftover molokheyya would make an appearance, which apparently had been fed to many mouths hailing from different countries with the same plastic spoon.

It could be said that I am no one to encourage many Egyptian moms to put a little more thought into their kids’ lunchboxes because it may seem that I try hard only to compensate for the fact that I am not, in reality, my stepkids’ “real” mom. Yes, there is truth in that I am over-delivering, overreaching to try to please the hearts of two young ones that found themselves in my home, but what I have learned is that most children, when given the opportunity and the right circumstances, will enjoy a variety of different foods that we as adults might not think to feed them.

It’s tiring to see the same things on kids’ menus everywhere and now in their lunch boxes to replace the regular white bread Nutella sandwich — chicken nuggets, french fries and pizza. If Chinese children are gobbling up slices of baked tofu and wolfing down plates of kai-lan, and Indian children are scooping up mounds of coconut rice and fleshy bits from a fish head curry, what are we doing? If we’re a culture that enjoys eating so much, where is the depth? Why is there fear in training our children’s palate — an automatic “no, he/she won’t like this”?

What so many of us are sending to school is afterthought food, with little consideration of the boredom that ensues when eating the same things for a few long years. Here’s a different idea below and if you don’t like it, there are many other recipes and ideas on blogs and popular food websites about lunch boxes. Visit Lunchbox Blues, a blog where J.M. Hirsch chronicles 180 days of school meals as well as how his son grows to accept certain foods. You can go through Shirmiya’s blog, Happy Little Bento, where she outdoes us all with her delicate hand and creative presentation. If those don’t work for you, there’s always Googling “best lunch box ideas for kids”. Whatever it is, just do something different this school year.

Pesto Pasta Salad

You’ll need:
2 cups of dry pasta (around 200 grams)
½ cup of basil pesto
½ cup of peas, cooked (around 75 grams)
1 medium-sized colored pepper, thinly sliced
½ a cup of seeded black kalamata olives (around 90 grams)
3 tablespoons of almonds, roughly chopped (around 30 grams)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
The juice of half a lemon

Basil Pesto:
(Recipe adapted from Elise Bauer)
2 cups of basil leaves, fresh
⅓ cup of pine nuts
½ a cup of Roumy cheese, grated
½ a cup of olive oil
3 large garlic cloves, minced
Salt and pepper

To make the pesto:
Combine the garlic, basil leaves and pine nuts in a food processor and pulse several times. Drizzle the olive oil into the food processor while continuing to blend. Pour in a thin stream until finished. Pulse until smooth then add the salt, pepper and cheese. Pulse 2 more times before pouring out.

For the pasta:
Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil then add your dried pasta. Cook until tender but firm. When done, drain and set the pasta aside. In a separate bowl, combine the peas, olives, colored pepper and almonds then add the pasta. Toss and store in an airtight container. Put the pesto and lemon juice into a separate covered container. Refrigerate both. Remove from the refrigerator when it is time to pack. Whisk the pesto and lemon juice together before pouring it over the pasta and accompanying vegetables. Toss gently and separate servings for packing.

Fusilli & Fuss

As featured in The Egypt Monocle

Educated Cairenes are a funny bunch, often blurring the lines when it suits them, merging reality with a glorious fantasy world where they are “better” for speaking English, where they are proficient based on a skill learned, in no detail, online.

​Among the new things that have recently astounded me in Cairo is the ability of some to flounce around the city introducing themselves as chefs without toiling in the grease of a hot kitchen — day in, day out. Some could argue that a chef in essence is the mastermind behind the menu, the director of the show — but how can we take control of the laborious task of coordinating a kitchen if we have received neither the education nor the training to apply commands correctly, let alone delegate them?

​It is unfortunate that Egyptian chefs who deserve to be called chefs aren’t the ones gaining that recognition. They are not the ones asked to be stars of an article praising both their skill and knowledge. They are not busy celebrity “cheffing” but are caught up in cooking and management, often not being the ones to get the likes on Facebook. These people are behind the scenes, cooks waiting to take the next order, invisible; and there are thousands of them in Egypt.

​So what is the difference between a cook and a chef?

​According to the three-starred New York restaurant Le Bernadin’s co-owner, Chef Eric Ripert, “A chef is a title. So, as a chef, you’re manager, basically, of your team — with many duties including the creativity and the leading role of the kitchen. Being a cook, it’s understanding the ingredients; it’s being good at the act of cooking, which is craftsmanship.” He goes on to say, “Now, I don’t think you can be a good chef if you are not a good cook.”

​This is not what I’m seeing, Cairo. Far from it. Instead, I’m seeing Egyptians and inefficient foreigners hired by Egyptians who believe they’ve been reincarnated as prettily boxed gifts bestowed upon Cairo’s food scene, doling out their PR routine at one event after another, popping open one unfinished restaurant after the next, with minimal focus on the food.

​This is not how awarded restaurants are made and it is far from what the food service industry truly represents — skills, humility and patience. Instead, we are rushing to wear our made-for-us branded toques, filling them with ambition, desires and dreams of reality TV.

​Creativity in food is no easy feat, especially once you’ve taken a long hard look at the international food world, old and new, and what people have been bringing to the table for years.

​By all means, become a chef in Cairo and call yourself one but if I’m speaking to you about outdated classics, it would be beneficial to have an idea about those I’m referencing as well as how to cook for a party of a hundred or more. If I criticize the way you cook your eggs, address my concern instead of unfollowing me on Twitter.

​It is exactly this behavior that is putting us nowhere on the global food map — all fluff and no substance.

​If you’re toying with the idea of finding a career in Cairo’s strange food world as a chef, begin as an apprentice and not the featured chef of a one-night-only event. Work your way up through the ranks of the iron-fisted restaurant kitchen hierarchy to learn the trade. Accept the advice you’re handed graciously. Don’t drink on the job. Study and hide your ego.

Creamy Cinnamon Fusilli with Broccoli & Chicken

You’ll need
350 grams of fusilli
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
7 grams of butter
1½ cups of cream
½ cup of chicken stock
A pinch of cinnamon
50 grams of Edam cheese
½ teaspoon of white pepper
½ a head of broccoli in florets
3 chicken breasts
1 tablespoons of vegetable oil
5 grams of butter

Salt and pepper to season

For the pasta, bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. It should be a little underdone when removed from the water. Set aside. In a large pan on medium heat, add the butter. Once it has foamed, add the garlic and onion. Cook for a few minutes until softened. They should not change color.

Add the cream and stir into the onions and garlic then add the chicken stock and bring to a high simmer. Lower the heat then add the cinnamon, pepper and salt. Leave on a low simmer for 5 minutes to thicken. Add the cheese and stir to combine. Add the pasta to the sauce and allow to cook for another 2-3 minutes until al dente.

In a separate pot, boil a pot full of salted water and add your broccoli florets. Cook for around 3-4 minutes then remove. Drain then add to the pasta.

While the sauce is left to thicken, heat a pan with a lid to medium-high heat then add the butter and oil. Swirl the pan to coat. Season the raw chicken breast then add to the pan. Leave to cook for approximately 7 minutes on each side, depending on how large the chicken breast is. Once done, allow the chicken breast to rest for a few minutes before slicing.

Slice the chicken. After plating up the fusilli with broccoli, rest the chicken on top. Feel free to add the chicken into the pasta pot to coat it with sauce before serving.

Orzo Chicken Salad & Letters to Friends

As featured in the Foodbuzz Top 9 (May 8th, 2012)

In early January 2011, Heba El Kayal, Lifestyle Editor of what recently was The Daily News Egypt, reached out to me, spinning my head with her subdued charm. Setting a date on email to Skype, I wondered what it was that she would ask me and why she had chosen me to interview, an unemployed Egyptian food blogger living in Kuala Lumpur.  All I had ever done was milk out every bit of silliness I had in me for my blog, that coupled with a recipe to go along with said dose of triviality.

Meeting her for the first time through a screen allowed me a glimpse of cold Cairo on a winter morning. Having had to suffer through many a female more concerned with proving through her dress sense that she had what it required to pull off her job, Heba caught me off-guard. A connection was formed at once. 

Bundled up on her bed in a robe and glasses, she greeted me as an old friend as I was quickly taken through the history of The Daily News Egypt. She was interviewing me because she was always on the look out for new talent. She was interviewing me because she thought I deserve some recognition. I did not see myself as talent; just effort and a little luck. 

Today, I have been the weekly food columnist for a year and a good quarter. The Daily News Egypt interview about my blog resulted in an opportunity to write regularly, to sharpen my skills, and most rewarding of all, to find sisterhood in a passerby. 

Heba, I cannot express my appreciation enough - for the days you pushed me to get out of my funk and fly, for the days you embraced my weaknesses and often, sadness. Thank you for being my editor, my keeper, my friend.  

Orzo Chicken Salad
You'll need:
1/2 cup of orzo
1.5 cups of chicken stock
1.5 cups of water
150 grams of grilled chicken, shredded
1 large red bell pepper, diced (I used 1 small red & 1 small yellow)
7 large kalamata olives, seeded and chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 big handful of chives, snipped
3 tablespoons of olive oil 
Juice of 1 lime
1 teaspoon of whole grain mustard
1/4 teaspoon of chili powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Bring the water and chicken stock to a boil. Add the orzo to the pot and stir for a moment to ensure that it doesn't stick to the bottom. Cook uncovered until the orzo is al dente. While the pasta is cooking, combine the chicken, bell peppers and olives in a large bowl. Mix half of the chives into the salad. When the orzo is ready, strain and toss through the other ingredients. In a small bowl, mix together the olive oil, lime juice, mustard, chili powder, garlic, salt and pepper to make a light dressing and pour over the orzo salad mixing gently as you go along to ensure it coats the salad ingredients. Garnish with the second half of snipped chives and serve chilled.  

A slow-roasted duck pasta for the sensible

As featured in The Daily News Egypt

I pressed a thin veil of tissue against my wounded knuckle, watching it absorb the red seeping out. “Stupid grater,” I mumbled as my husband laughed, reasoning with me that it was in reality a simple gadget, incapable of stupidity and that I was what my squash coach once called me — butter fingers.

Despite my limited skill and short-lived efforts at squash and grating, I was determined to prove that I was anything but the clumsy Ms. Butterfingers my close ones made me out to be. Yes, I occasionally trip over raised sidewalk tiles and I'll admit that my unsuspecting knee has had troublesome encounters with protruding table corners, but surely those repeated incidents could not justify calling me such ludicrous names.

Unlike my waned interest in thumping a ball to have it come back at me, I learned to grate correctly and to keep my knuckles away; but most importantly, I threw out my bizarre purchase of a grater that was comprised of an oval-shaped plastic refrigerator box, with interchangeable metal grater covers, that would not stand upright and might with the right lighting excite eager horror movie goers to enter my world of slashed knuckles. In its place, a pleasant box grater arrived with a comfortable white handle and tubed rubber at the base to limit sliding. Soon it was evident that it was sensibility that I might have been lacking and not skill.

New mothers will buy baby food makers, hoping to join the next line of supermoms who make their own gourmet baby food; but could they not use a regular food processor or blender in its place? I am not one to judge for many of us have fallen victim to these gadgets that are piled onto the clutter already accumulating in our kitchens.

You'll find people excited about their new buys: specialized banana slicers that come in sunshine yellow, blue rubber tubes dedicated to easy garlic-peeling, uni-tasking asparagus peelers and even skinny ovens pushed as pizza makers. Do we need any of this?

After a good year of buying products I felt would make my life easier, I bravely faced up to my messy drawers packed with impulse buys and admitted to only needing some strong tools, an organized mind and a focused eye on time.

Getting rid of my miserable garlic press that had only been used once, I understood why Anthony Bourdain, chef and author, called it an “abomination” and connected with his suspicion of the viscid juice that resulted to present us garlic-press owners with something he insists “ain't garlic”.

It would benefit us all to instantly cease the silly spending and concentrate on technique — how to use a knife properly, what knives to buy and how to sharpen them. If we insist on churning out better pizzas at home, it's best to use unglazed quarry tile as a stone to extract moisture and crisp your crust. The kitchen has nothing to do with talent and equipment; there's only practice and an honest desire to gain in skill.

This recipe asks for no fancy gadgets. It commands nothing but time and a sharp knife. Rewarding you with the warmth of steaming pasta, the peppery flavor of rocket and the richness of duck meat, it requires nothing more than a casual night at home as you contemplate the inevitable spring cleaning soon to come.

Pasta with slow-roasted duck and wilted rocket

For the duck, you'll need:

3 duck legs, shredded
Extra salt
½ cup of melted ghee
Salt and pepper to taste

For the pasta:
200 grams of pasta, cooked al dente
2 handfuls of rocket
1-2 tablespoons of duck fat (from the duck legs)
1 tablespoon of butter
4 clove of garlic, finely minced
Salt and pepper to taste

½ cup of walnuts, roughly chopped

Dry the raw duck with a hairdryer. Prick the duck skin with a needle at an angle to avoid piercing the flesh. This allows the duck fat to seep out and crisps the skin. Salt the duck all over using more salt than usual and let it rest for an hour. In a small baking dish small enough to hold them snugly, pour the ghee then place the duck legs skin side up. Pop in the oven and turn the temperature to 140 degrees Celsius. Cook the duck gently for 2 hours. After 1½ hours, the duck should be submerged in melted fat and the skin should begin to crisp. When this happens, turn up your heat to 190 degrees Celsius and leave to crisp until a golden brown. This should take 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let it rest for 10 minutes before eating whole or shredding for pasta.

In a large pan, melt the duck fat and butter then add the garlic. Cook on medium heat for a minute until garlic is fragrant then add the walnuts and stir. Add the rocket and cook for 2-3 minutes until wilted. Add the shredded duck, season with pepper liberally and salt minimally. Cook for 2 more minutes then add the cooked pasta and toss. Let the flavors meld for 2-3 minutes and serve up individually.

A roasted tomato macaroni for the unpresent

As featured in The Daily News Egypt

I know a boy with a golden smile that outshines his speckled eyes and curly locks woven with tones of clear honey and pale lager. A deliberately early riser, he gets high on dancing in front of the television and playing air guitar while the rest of our home sleeps. There are days I hear him, bumbling about, making happy sounds against his cereal bowl with the edge of a spoon; these noisy melodies help rainy mornings pass comfortably, as I snuggle deeper into my white duvet, imploring my adult self to find her hunger for new experiences and go forth unabashedly into the day.

Returning to the memory of the day I first met him, I remember thinking determinedly, “I want to be part of this.”

At the time, it did not occur to me that being a stepmother involved so much more than bearing the weight of an ugly stereotype; but oftentimes I do not rationalize things and so I leapt in, oozing with outward confidence, hoping to be that stepmotherly change I wanted to see in the world. With that, my plate had become surprisingly full.

Swept away by my stepson's passion, our clean-lined kitchen became a place bubbling with ideas as we opened ourselves up to new flavors. Always looking for more seductive ways to feed our newly assembled family, we all wanted to be do our part: my husband with his proficient grilling skills, my stepdaughter with her remarkable kneading abilities, my stepson with his delicate touch and discernible palate, and me — always trying to fit in.

Moving them farther and farther away from their bad eating habits, my stepchildren began to sincerely give in to their now ripened lust for good food. Do they still eat with the abandonment they learned in our home or have they reverted back to their plain-pasta-eating, bottled-salad-dressing selves? I do not know.

It has now been one year, one month and one day since we have last seen or spoken to the children. For reasons that stem from a bitter divorce, the children are paying the price of a dissolved marriage, the same way I once had to do with my parents.

Shutting our kitchen down for a few months except for the odd dish here and there to remind us that we still live in a functioning home albeit of two, it became difficult to find the inspiration to conjure up new dishes again. Equally harrowing was the meticulous making of previously cherished family meals. I have not had buttery mashed potatoes, pureed to a smooth velvet, since the first week of January 2011, or what I like to call “the incident.”

Will I only see the boy with the golden smile when his hair has darkened, older like his father's buzz cut, tinged with nuances of roasted stout and milk chocolate? Will I twirl through our living room again with my bright-eyed stepdaughter after a mutual chili-high from generous lappings of Tom Yum Goong? Should I forget about them and what I have taught them because I am their mere stepmother?

I cannot answer these questions. I can only say that it doesn't matter which house they're at, they'll always eat pasta with a tomato-based sauce and today for the first time I'm making a proper one without them. My growing girl would enjoy it with a thicker sauce while my boy with a sensitive stomach would prefer it light and fresh.

This recipe balances out both with a little bit of new: thick and chunky tomato flesh slowly roasted, a snappy sting of fresh chives and the elimination of heavy, concentrated tomato paste finished off with thin slices of unmelted Italian Pecorino cheese. I only hope that one day I'll be able to share this with them as I have with you. Until then, I'll hold on to a wish that someone with a moral code can take a look at our laws because I'd like to live in an Egypt where fathers can see their children and where I don't have to worry about what they're spraying on my food.

Roasted Tomato Elbow Macaroni

You’ll need:
4 large tomatoes
½ a sweet red onion, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, finely minced
¼ cup of breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons of olive oil
1½ tablespoons of unsalted butter
400 grams of dry pasta
1 teaspoon of granulated sugar
A handful of chives, snipped with scissors
1/3 cup of Pecorino, shaved
Salt and black pepper to taste

Cook the macaroni in a pot of boiling salted water for approximately 8 minutes or until al dente. Reserve ¼ cup of the pasta liquid. Drain the macaroni. Place the tomatoes whole in a large baking dish and pop into the oven heated at 180 degrees Celsius. Roast for an hour or until the skin breaks and the tomato flesh becomes tender. If the tomatoes begin to brown, turn down the heat to 160 degrees Celsius. When the tomatoes are done, remove from the oven and set aside until they cool slightly. Remove the vines and crush with your hands into a bowl. In a large pan, toast the breadcrumbs then reserve in a small bowl. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil and 1½ tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Add the onions and garlic and stir until soft. Pour in the crushed tomatoes and sugar. Cook for 5 minutes before stirring in the pasta liquid. Bring your sauce to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for 7-8 minutes. Season with salt and black pepper. Add pasta and cook for another minute while tossing to coat the pasta in sauce. Remove from the heat and sprinkle with shaved Pecorino, breadcrumbs and snipped chives.

A Virtual Potluck with Gojee

Have you been on Gojee before? A while back, I had spotted it and was so excited at the prospect of screen-sized food photos at the touch of a button that I was on it all the time. Getting a little more engrossed, I decided to get in touch with the great team behind Gojee to see if I could contribute. Veronica emailed me, informing me that they weren't looking for new contributors. Oh, the heartbreak.  

A while later, Veronica contacted me again telling me that they've accepted my recipes and that my blog was now included. Happy day! Today, Gojee is hosting a potluck that I can't be there for but Veronica asked me so kindly to join the fun in Gojee's virtual potluck. 

Starting on Thursday, January 26, check out other potluck dishes fellow gojee contributors shared. Go to gojee.com and enter "gojeepotluck" into I Crave. You can also follow #gojeepotluck on Twitter. This is my contribution. 

One last bit of niceness to Gojee before I go: Gojee has now been nominated for "Best Design" at the 2011 Crunchies. I wish our wonderful team plenty of luck, hugs and food to keep the anxiety away. I can honestly say I'm very proud to be part of such an exceptional group of people who spend time, money and effort to bring homemade food to the world.

Basterma Pasta Bake

As featured in The Daily News Egypt

You'll need:

4 cups of pasta

100 grams of butter

110 grams of basterma

2 long red Italian onions, sliced

¼ cup of all-purpose flour

2 cups of full cream milk

½ a teaspoon of whole-grain mustard

½ cup of heavy cream

2 egg yolks, beaten

½ cup of Mozzarella cheese

½ cup of Cheddar cheese

½ cup of Parmesan cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 175 degrees Celsius. In a large pot, cook the pasta until it's tender but undercooked. Drain and set aside. In a medium-sized pan, pan-fry the basterma in a drizzle of oil until it changes color and becomes slightly crispy around the edges. Keep the basterma fat that has melted in the pan on the side to use for later. In the same pan, melt 50 grams of butter and saute the onions over medium-low heat for approximately 10 minutes. They should have started to slightly color but should remain soft. Remove from heat and set aside.

In a medium-sized pot, melt 50 grams of butter. Add the basterma grease you previously reserved and add the flour. Whisk constantly as it cooks for around 1 minute. Add the milk and cream and cook for 3-5 minutes or until it begins to thicken.

Add salt and pepper and turn your heat down.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg yolks with 4 tablespoons of your bechamel-like sauce. Stir quickly then pour the egg mixture back into the sauce. Let it combine for a minute. Add the cheese and stir. Once the cheese has melted, add most of the basterma and onions and mix. Keep some on the side. Add the pasta and coat it all with the sauce. Tip your pot over a baking dish and pour your pasta mixture. Sprinkle with the rest of your onion and basterma mix and bake for around 20-25 minutes. Serve steaming hot. 

Taste Junction & a Koshari-inspired Spaghetti

I was recently asked to guest post for Anamika of TasteJunction, which got me a little more excited than I should be seeing as it was the first time for me to guest post. Thank you, Anamika, for giving me this opportunity and for sharing your fabulous blog with me. For the recipe of the koshari-inspired spaghetti along with what it means for an Egyptian to go without koshary, please visit her blog here.

Vermicelli and a Tuesday Letter

Dear Anonymous,

You made me laugh this morning by leaving this comment (which I will approve and won't shy away from) on my previous post about microwave cake: "this cake is horrible. not only does it taste like a chicken poop, but it burnt my boyfriends tongue... now we're going to the hospital...THANKS! NOT RECOMMENDED 0/100" 

Now, Anonymous, really? No constructive criticism? No punctuation and rude too? Tsk, tsk. I see why you're so afraid of this world. I wonder though, will you ever learn to leave your name when you leave a nasty comment? Or are you talking to strangers behind your mommy's back and prefer she not know? Nevertheless, I will continue to write this letter to you because your commenting skills need some work and someone has to address them.


First off, I didn't know my cake tasted of chicken poop. In fact, I've never had chicken poop in my life. [Hmm. I wonder if Andrew Zimmern has tasted chicken poop.] But no, you're not saying it tasted like chicken poop alone but "a chicken poop". I take it you were out one day, found a chicken and popped a single serving of its pebble poop into your mouth. Sort of like a Pringle or even better, a chocolate ball of some sort, Maltesers maybe? I hope that single serving of yours served you well. I'm guessing chicken poop is an acquired taste. Maybe if you indulge a little more, you'll get accustomed to it and life won't be so bad.  

Now about your boyfriend's tongue. You should be happy that he now has a burnt tongue. After all, do you really want to go there with the chicken poop flavor still lingering and all? Do you? I'm also a little befuddled. Could it be true that your boyfriend was never informed that cutlery, when immersed into something hot, becomes hot itself? You know, like your soup spoon if left for too long because heat travels? Could he not tell when he came close to the spoon that it would be hot? It just came out of the microwave. It just came out of the microwave. It just came out of the microwave. Do I need to say it again? 

Thanks for rating me 0/100 too. I didn't know that a microwave cake could actually have so many facets to it that it needed to be scored out of a 100. I also want to thank you for giving me content to blog about today; I really don't know what I would be babbling on about if it weren't for you. So again, dear Anonymous, learn to leave your name for you have nothing to be ashamed of and if something went wrong with the recipe, you could have asked and we could have worked through it together if you were having trouble but regardless of all that, I genuinely hope you're eating something better than chicken poop right now (save it for fertilizer please) and that your boyfriend will learn that cutlery gets hot. Cheers!  

Love and lots of microwave cakes, 

She who knows no chicken poop 

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, here's a recipe for Egyptian Vermicelli. Back home, you can buy vermicelli, pre-broken up, as our collective demand for it is in that form. Despite finding it a hassle to sit and snap vermicelli abroad, there are times when I find myself craving the simple flavors of "Sha'reyya" (Egypt's name for Vermicelli). At other times, you just need to be transported back to a carefree moment in your childhood where people cooked you yummy food before telling you to go study.

This recipe doesn't require much. In terms of ingredients, it's as simple as it gets. The star of the show is really the ghee. You could substitute with vegetable oil but it's no match. The main thing you have to remember is to take your time browning the vermicelli. Don't rush through it. You'll end up with quite an uneven color and you'll risk scorching it. Following the absorption method, you'll be saving yourself the hassle of draining it and it'll retain that beautiful smell.

Egyptian Vermicelli (Sha'reyya)

500 grams of vermicelli

1 full tablespoon of ghee

2 cups water

salt to taste

Break up your vermicelli into small equal bits and fry in ghee until it reaches a golden brown color. Add the water and salt and bring to a boil. When the water is almost absorbed, lower your heat and continue to cook until done (al dente).

Serve. This is usually served as a side dish. I'm a big fan of eating it with nothing else but that doesn't fly in most Egyptian households. 

Revolution Koshari

What's been happening on the streets of Egypt has had me glued to the news for almost a month and a half now. My column in the newspaper has been resumed and I'm finally back to the kitchen after detaching myself from the television and taking part in a workshop held by a French chef here in Malaysia. I'll probably blog about that soon. Until then, here's the link to the latest column with a recipe. It's based on a traditional Egyptian dish comprising of rice, vermicelli, pasta, lentils, chickpeas and fried onions topped with a tomato-garlic-vinegar sauce. 

Koshari-inspired Spaghetti
By eliminating the rice in koshary, you ultimately end up with an interesting pasta dish


You'll need:
500 gm of spaghetti, cooked al dente
2 small onions, chopped
2 tablespoons of ghee
400 grams of chickpeas, cooked
150 grams of brown lentils, cooked


For the sauce:
1/3 cup of olive oil
5 heaped tablespoons of tomato paste
2 leveled tablespoons of all-purpose flour
5-7 cloves of garlic, sliced, depending on the strength
1.5 teaspoons of chili powder
3 tablespoons of vinegar
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
5-6 cups of water, depending on your preferred sauce thickness
Salt and pepper, to taste


Begin with the sauce. Heat your oil in a pot on medium heat. Add the flour and tomato paste. Constantly whisk until all is combined into a smooth paste. Cook on low heat for a minute until it begins to sweat. Add the sliced garlic, chili and vinegar and incorporate into the roux. Add the water, stir then boil once and reduce heat to a low simmer. Simmer until it has thickened and the sauce coats the back of a spoon. Mix the cooked pasta with the chickpeas and lentils and set aside. Fry the chopped onions in the ghee until they reach a deep brown color. Serve the sauce over the pasta and garnish with fried onions.