Egyptian Koshari

The National Dishes Series

The third episode of the National Dishes Series — where a country gets picked at random and we cook their national dish while digging into a bit of history. This time: Egypt.

Egypt. A hundred and ten million people, ninety-five percent of whom live along a single river. They gave the world the pyramids, Cleopatra, the 365-day calendar, Mo Salah, and the world’s first recorded peace treaty. The ancient Egyptians also invented the world’s first prosthetic limb — a wooden toe.

Cleopatra wasn’t even Egyptian. She was Greek — part of a Macedonian dynasty that ruled for three centuries. And they’re currently building an entirely new capital city east of Cairo because Cairo is simply too full of people.

And their national dish is a bowl of rice, lentils, pasta and chickpeas piled together and drowned in sauce.

Koshari

Koshari is a dish that shouldn’t exist. The name comes from khichri — an Indian rice and lentil dish — which made its way to Egypt during British colonial rule in the late 1800s. Italian immigrants then threw pasta and tomato sauce into the mix. Egyptians added crispy fried onions, spicy shatta, garlicky da’ah, and turned the whole thing into street food. So you’ve got Indian, Italian and Egyptian influences crammed into one bowl — and somehow it works.

The earliest written record of koshari in English comes from 1853. Explorer Richard Burton — not the actor, the Victorian one — wrote about it in his book Journey to Egypt and the Hijaz, describing it as the breakfast of the people of Suez. Back then it was just lentils, rice, butter, onions and pickled lemons. No pasta, no tomato sauce, no crispy onions. The Suez Canal hadn’t even been built yet.

Abou Tarek

If you ever go to Cairo, there’s a place called Abou Tarek. A man named Youssef Zaki started selling koshari from a street cart at thirteen years old after his father died. No permit — he used to hide the cart from the police. He eventually talked his way into buying a coffee shop on Champollion Street with a down payment and monthly instalments. That one cart is now a multi-storey restaurant. Koshari is the only thing on the menu. It’s rated one of the most legendary restaurants in the world.

Just koshari.

Verdict

For what is completely a vegan dish, this is incredible. So much flavour, and all the oily, rich rice and pasta is offset perfectly by the sharp tomato sauce. The crispy onion adds texture and so much flavour. The da’ah cuts through the richness with a garlic-vinegar hit, and the shatta brings the heat without drowning everything out. A dish that shouldn’t work on paper and absolutely does in the bowl.