A Different Drummer

As my Hungarian visitors discovered in their two weeks in Egypt, there is some awesome, awesome food to be eaten in Egypt. Egyptian food is cool because is can be so varied - from mashed bean sandwiches (fuul, tastes better than it sounds) and grilled livers and kidneys on the street, all costing less than half an American Peso, all the way through to the most delicious barbequed meat and chicken, awesome Lebanese and Syrian Shawerma and Arab desserts dripping with honey and chopped pistaccio nuts - there is some serious eating to be done in Egypt.

I'd love to give recipes and instructions for making some of this stuff at home, but mainly, its out of reach of the average western house cook. Most of the food requires weird ingredients, which even if I could disover their English names, would certainly not be the same anywhere else. And on top of that is the need for some serious cooking equipment - the coal grills and various pots and things which I have never seen outside of Egypt.

But I'm still going to try and give a few interesting ones where I can. A lot of Egyptian food is fairly achievable, and fairly familiar to anyone who knows Mediterranean style food. So, with no further introduction, here is "Tomatoey-Egg stuff that totally Frigging Rules", or Shakshouka, as these pesky Egyptians insist on calling it.

Shakshouka

6 tomatoes
A big red capsicum/red pepper (only Australians call this Capsicum I think....)
Garlic
A few red chillies (optional if you are a Great Big Pussy Who Doesnt Like Chilli)
A big onion
4 eggs
Spices of your choosing (i reccomend chilli powder, cumin, thyme, sea salt and black pepper)
Fresh basil leaves

Chop up the tomatoes, capsicum, chillies and onion in the way you would normally do if making pasta sauce, chilli con carne or similar. In Egypt they use a cheese grater to chop tomatoes, which is a cool idea that I have never seen before. Just grate the tomato through like any other gratable item, and you end up with tomatoes chopped substantially finer than you can do by hand. Try it out if you want some excitement in you sad little life.....

Fry the garlic until it smells great. Burning the garlic is the best way to complete fuck whatever dish you are cooking, so dont do it. Add the onions and fry until they are substantially more transpearant than the average Middle Eastern government. Add the tomatoes and capsicum, cook until it has simmered down to a thick sauce.

Throw in the chopped chillies and mix them around. Now heres the bit that's important to get right.

Crack the eggs and add them, whole, to the mixture, which should be bubbling gently. Now, you dont want to whip it all up into a custard, but you want to gently break up all the eggs, while still keeping them fairly autonomous from the sauce. You want to let the eggs set and cook within the sauce, without just becoming part of it. Think of the Kurds in northern Iraq, around that level of independance.

Once the eggs are cooked, spice it up to your heats desire. Last thing to do it tear up the basil leaves (do it with your hands, not a knife) and stir them through the whole thing.

Eat fresh and hot, with pita bread.