Here’s another cross post from my other blog:

Having mastered falafel / ta’amayya, I decided to try making my other favorite Egyptian street food, koshari. Egyptians eat this all the time, and there are endless little shops that keep the componants in big vats all day, layering them into take out containers for lunch and dinner (for breakfast, they usually eat my third favorite Egyptian street food - fuul: mashed fava beans with olive oil, garlic, and lemon juice stuffed in ‘aish bread).

For koshari, you first make a spicy, thick tomato sauce, with green peppers, lots of garlic, and lots of chili in whatever form you have (cayenne, dried chili flakes, fresh chilis). Then you brown lentils in oil, adding stock to cover, and simmer. After ten minutes, add rice, more stock or water, and simmer until everything is done, adding water if necessary. Meanwhile, boil water with salt, and cook up a few cups of small pasta - little elbow macaronis are most common. Finally, fry up one entire onion, sliced, in plenty of oil until it is all very brown. Drain pasta, and stir in some oil and a couple spoonfuls of the tomato sauce.

For individual servings, scoop the lentil mixture and the pasta next to each other on the plate, top with tomato sauce, and put fried onions on top. For a crowd, put all the pasta on a large platter, top with the lentils and rice, then sauce, then onions. This would be great for bringing to church potlucks or coffee hour, and other than the oil (which is allowed on Sundays anyway, and none of which need be olive oil, if you distinguish between the two for the fast), it is totally Lenten. In fact, all three of these dishes (ta’amayya, fuul, and koshari) along with the red lentil soup (shorbet adds) I often make, are foods claimed to be invented by the Copts (Egyptian Christians), who made these three Lenten dishes ubiquitous in Egypt.

This might sound rather plain, but it is REALLY good. Definitely something where the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts. The onions are the best part, so don’t omit them.

A couple people asked me for more specifics, so I’ll post my responses here:

For the sauce:

I sauteed one whole diced green pepper in oil until soft, than added three cloves of garlic. I only had diced tomatoes, so I whirred them in the food processor briefly (two 15 oz cans, mostly drained) and added them with a 6 oz can of tomato paste. Probably two tsp of cumin, and some salt (but canned tomatoes usually have salt, so not too much). It should be fairly thick, so cook it down a bit if it’s watery. Oh, and it had a tablespoon of sugar and spicy stuff to taste. I kept adding more dried chili, so I have no idea how much I ended up with.

For the rest:

I browned 1 cup of lentils, and then added three cups liquid, cooked for 10 minutes, then added 1 cup of rice (mixed white and brown since I was almost out of brown) with another cup of liquid. I put two boullion cubes in since I forgot to defrost any stock. I ended up adding some more liquid as it began to stick before the lentils and rice are done - just keep an eye on it. 2-3 cups dry pasta seems to be about the right amount to go with the amount of lentils and rice.

This made two big dinners for Paul and I (so, four altogether) plus one lunch for each of us. I guess that would make it six servings :)