Work through the list in order. Hide the notes when you know what to do.
-
Eat koshari
Rice, macaroni, lentils and chickpeas in one bowl under tomato sauce, garlic vinegar and a heap of crisp fried onion. The national dish, entirely plant-based and costing next to nothing.
The chilli shatta and garlic vinegar dakka sit on the table and you add them yourself, gradually. Ask for extra fried onion; it is what makes the dish.
-
Try ful medames
Fava beans simmered overnight and mashed with olive oil, lemon, cumin and garlic. Egypt's leading breakfast, eaten with flatbread straight from a shared bowl.
Ask for the additions: egg, tahina, tomato or chilli change the dish completely. Ful carts open at dawn and often close by midday.
-
Eat taameya
Egyptian falafel made from fava beans rather than chickpeas, which makes it green inside and noticeably softer. Fried until crisp and served in bread with salad and tahina.
A green interior is the mark of real taameya rather than imported falafel. Take it straight from the fryer; cold it loses the point entirely.
-
Try molokhia
A soup of jute leaves chopped to a green, slightly viscous mass, finished with garlic fried in ghee with coriander. The texture is unfamiliar; the flavour is herbal and deep.
It is eaten with rice and chicken or rabbit, poured over the rice. It is usually made with chicken broth, so vegetarians should ask.
-
Try hawawshi
Flatbread stuffed with minced meat, onion, pepper and spices and baked until crisp, with the fat soaking into the bread. Street food eaten hot and by hand.
Look for bakeries turning them out in batches from a wood oven. Ask for the spicy version separately; the standard one is aromatic rather than hot.
-
Try mahshi
Vegetables — courgettes, peppers, tomatoes, vine leaves — stuffed with herbed rice and stewed in tomato. A home dish that plain restaurants also serve.
The meat-free rice version is as common as the meat one. The vine leaves here are rolled thinner and tighter than in Turkey or Greece.
-
Try stuffed pigeon
Pigeon stuffed with green wheat freekeh or rice and roasted whole. A celebratory dish with restaurants in Cairo dedicated to it.
There is not much meat on a pigeon and it is eaten by hand, taking the bird apart. Freekeh is smoked green wheat, and its smoky flavour carries the dish.
-
Eat shawerma or kofta
Spit meat in bread, or grilled minced kofta with tahina and salad. The meat alternative to the bean-based street food, slightly pricier but still cheap.
Kofta needs tahina and the tomato-and-onion salad alongside. It is ordered by weight, a hundred or two hundred grams of meat per person.
-
Try baba ganoush and tahina
Smoked aubergine mashed with tahina, lemon and garlic, plus tahina itself, sesame paste thinned into a sauce. Both open any meal, with flatbread.
The aubergine should be charred over open flame, which is where the smoke comes from. Egyptian tahina is thinner than the Levantine kind and served almost as a sauce.
-
Try feteer meshaltet
A many-layered pastry made with ghee, stretched until translucent and folded dozens of times. It comes plain, savoury with cheese, or sweet with honey and icing sugar.
It is made in front of you in dedicated feteer shops, and the stretching is worth watching. Plain feteer is eaten with honey and white cheese at the same time.
-
Eat om ali Desserts and pastries
A hot dessert of pastry soaked in milk with nuts, raisins and coconut, then baked until browned. The Egyptian answer to bread pudding.
It arrives scalding in a clay dish straight from the oven; cold it collapses. The name means mother of Ali and comes with a court legend attached.
-
Try basbousa Desserts and pastries
A semolina cake soaked in sugar syrup with an almond on top. Dense, wet and very sweet, taken in a small piece with unsweetened tea.
Its neighbours in the case are konafa with shredded pastry and, during Ramadan, qatayef. The syrup should soak all the way through rather than pool at the bottom.
-
Drink karkade Non-alcoholic drinks
An infusion of hibiscus: deep red, sour, drunk hot or iced. Egypt is a major producer, and here it comes out stronger and sharper than usual.
In summer it is drunk chilled and lightly sweetened. Real karkade clouds as it cools, which is normal rather than a sign of spoilage.
-
Drink tea in an ahwa Non-alcoholic drinks
Strong black tea in a glass, with or without mint, drunk at a street café over backgammon. The ahwa is an institution: people sit for hours and nobody hurries them.
Ask for shai bil nana for mint and sukar shwaya for less sugar. The default is a great deal of sugar.
-
Try Egyptian coffee Non-alcoholic drinks
Finely ground coffee brewed in a pot and served with the grounds settled at the bottom. Sweetness is stated when ordering and cannot be changed afterwards.
Three levels: sada without sugar, mazbout medium, ziyada sweet. The grounds are neither stirred nor drunk.
-
Try sobia or sahlab Non-alcoholic drinks
Sobia is a cold milky coconut drink popular during Ramadan; sahlab is hot, thick, with cinnamon and nuts, and belongs to winter. Both are sold from street shops.
Sahlab is nearly as thick as pudding and comes in a glass with a spoon. During Ramadan stalls selling sobia and apricot amar el-din stand on every corner.
