My interpretation of Egyptian cuisine

In a recent entry, I believe I mentioned doing a Moroccan tasting menu at work. Well, after that we took our theme back to North Africa a couple weeks later. This time we decided to showcase Egypt, and the food the land of the Sphinx has to offer. Growing up, I was always fascinated with the history of Egypt- tombs, mummies, the pyramids, all that. I hadn’t really thought much about my childhood fascination with Egypt again until here very recently- been watching a lot of nat geo and history channel- and kinda randomly decided to do an Egyptian themed menu. Now, going into this I wouldn’t have claimed to have known really anything about Egyptian food(still wouldn’t dare say I have much more than a basic understanding), but that was the fun of doing this- getting to learn something new. I just did some basic quick research over the net, and went off of the little bit I know about Mediterranean food(in the broad sense of it), and some typical things one sees in North African food(lots of heavy spicing, grains, beans, a plethora of great produce). Also, and this was a huge resource, but my boss actually spent about three weeks in Egypt on vacation, so he was an easy go to for questions and insight. All that said, lets get into what we came up with- I was pretty happy with it, and the limited feedback we got was overwhelmingly positive.

We’ll start with appetizers. Our tasting menu is in choice of format, with two appetizers and two entrees to choose from(as well as two desserts). Our first appetizer offering was a simple Avocado and Radish Salad. Very light, very simple- some baby spinach and arugula, red onion, tender red potatoes, almonds, and a cinnamon vinaigrette(rice wine vinegar, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, shallots, garlic, jalapeno, lime juice, olive oil), plus the obvious items mentioned in the name of the salad. Pretty nice little salad… likely would be a bit more festive if the weather was a bit warmer. Sold quite a bit of these, but I don’t remember getting any specific feedback.

Our second appetizer offering is a bit more fun, at least to say. If you’ve seen the move “Wedding Crashers”, you’ve heard of this dish but if you’re like me you may not have known what the hell it was they were talking about. Baba Ghanoush would be the name of this one. Whats Baba Ghanoush exactly? Just a puree of roasted eggplant, generally served at room temperature, along with some bread- served like a dip almost. So for this simple little dip, all we did was cut some eggplants in half, sprinkle the flesh with curry powder, and roast it at 325 until tender. Then we just scooped that flesh out and pureed it in the food processor along with some garlic and onions, and just a touch of olive oil. Now, we had to add a little more to the dish than just some eggplant. So, we went with a Mediterranean favorite- a fried chickpea cake(mashed chickpeas, garlic, cilantro, tahini, cumin, coriander, lime juice, olive oil). Almost like falafel, but we just sauteed it on the flat top instead of being a deepfried ball. Then we took some of our pizza dough(yeah, a bit of a shortcut, bo so what), and rolled it out very thin and grilled it, for a nice grilled flatbread to be used scoop all the good stuff up. To finish the plate off, we drizzled some good Middle Eastern style aioli(roasted garlic and olive oil puree) over everything. Very simple, but nothing not to like here. I think most were a little scared of something titled “Baba Ghanoush,” so we didn’t sell much of it, though.

Entrees got a little more interesting. For our fish option, we used Corvina(Pacific Bass- not exactly Egyptian, but thats what was available to us). But, with the heavy spicing we used to replicate the style of cooking in Egypt, it really wouldn’t have mattered what kind of fish we used. You’re going to see a lot of the same spices repeatedly. But, we pureed roasted garlic, jalapenos, cilantro, parsley, tahini, cumin, coriander, lime juice, and olive oil together and used this as a rub for the fish. So, after we seared the fish, we’d smear some of this robustly flavored paste over the top of the fish before finishing it in the oven. Now for the starch… We didn’t have bulgar wheat, but we used couscous to make tabouleh- diced tomatoes, cucumber, mint, parsley, cilantro, lemon/lime juice, and sesame oil all mixed into a couscous salad. Now, Egypt is known for its phenomenal selection of fresh product. Egypt is to Europe what Chile is to North America when it comes to being a supplier of produce. So, we finished this dish with a really nice mango and starfruit chutney. If you’ve never had starfruit before…. let me introduce you. You may have seen them at the grocery store- the bright yellow, star shaped fruit, with green edges. They’re also known as Carambola. They actually kinda taste like a golden delicious apple, with a bit of a citrus flavor as well. They’re quite nice. We cooked the mango chutney as one typically would, but waited until it was cooled to add in the diced starfruit, for a nice bit of crunch.

For our non-fish entree, we did something really exciting. At least I thought so. We decided to use Pigeon, also known as Squab. Its considered a delicacy in North Africa, and to a certain extent all across Europe. Squab is like a big quail- so we’re talking about a little game bird, and its generally looked at in Egypt as a special occasion type meal. The first step was creating a very flavorful marinade, using a lot of the same spices we’ve mentioned before- cumin, coriander, curry, cinnamon, clove, paprika, jalapenos, cilantro, parsley, garlic, molasses, honey, lime juice, and rice wine vinegar. We then used those same spices, along with a little sugar, as a dry spice rub to add to the bird right before roasting. For our starch, we chose rice and red lentils, along with some dried fruit- dates, figs, raisins, currants, and apricots. Finally, for a sort of sauce(they don’t do much with sauces in the typical sense in Egypt), we made a nice fig preserve- pureed figs, chopped dried figs, onions, garlic, jalapenos, and fig vinegar. This really came together to be a great dish- didn’t got a whole lot of orders(people were scared of Squab), but most of the feedback we received on this dish was nothing but stellar.

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