From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Auntie Mame had it wrong. Life is not a banquet, it's an all you can eat buffet. While I hate to sound like a princess, even beautifully presented buffets can become tiresome when you have them day after day. The buffet was a nearly constant feature of our evening meals in Egypt. They were wedding scale extravaganzas, complete with hot and cold tables and dessert bars so long you could go into sugar shock if you even looked at them too long. Our meals were wonderful, but, unfortunately, they were not Egyptian. As a matter of fact, you had to search to find Egyptian dishes tucked into the copious buffet selections. I had done a little food related homework prior to our trip, so I was more fortunate than most in that I could recognize the few Egyptian dishes on the buffet tables. A sparsity of native food is not uncommon when you travel with a group where the goal is to please most of the people most of the time. It can be overcome by breaking away from the group for cooking lessons or meals in restaurants where native food is served. The climate in Egypt was not conducive to individual exploration, so we "suffered" through nights of rib roast or beef Wellington, and when I came on them, I jumped on the odd Egyptian dishes that I found. The recipe I'm featuring tonight is for a dish that is served throughout the country. It is very popular with locals and recipes for it abound. I had it several times when we were in Cairo and Alexandria and, interestingly, while they shared the same ingredients, the dishes never tasted quite the same. The dish is koshari. Koshari (also spelled Koshary or Kushari) is the national dish of Egypt. It mixes lentils, macaroni noodles and rice into a single dish that is topped with a spicy tomato sauce, garbanzo beans and fried onions. The idea sounds strange…until you taste it. Then you’ll know why this dish is a favorite among Egyptians. Here is how it's made.
