I grew up in Egypt and ate some of the best food one can think of in that country. My family lived for food and it's exactly how we all turned out. I bought this book because I was tired of making so-so recipes from cookbooks written by non-Egyptians or those who remember it as children when they once lived in Egypt and then went back to figure out the recipes from those willing to share. Needless to say, they miss the mark big time. This book does have a wealth of recipes but unless you're a seasoned Egyptian cook you're not going to get many of them right. On some of the spices, she was way off on the proportions. There are a few new cookbooks w/ better instructions and lots of pictures, namely "The Savory Secrets of Dodi's Home Cooking" or "My Egyptian Grandmother's Kitchen" both written by Egyptians. They seem promising based on reviews I read of them. I will be buying them today so I'll update my review with the results. I would avoid Claudia Roden's books as I think she misses the mark on spices, etc.
Review #2
Egyptian Cuisine
I am very happy with this cookbook. I look forward to cooking these recipes. I have had a few Egyptian meals and fell in love with their cuisine.
Review #3
No frills instuctions, good for basics of egyptian cooking....
I've had this book for a couple of years now. This is a good book that gives a lot of Egyptian recipes made by every-day Egyptian people. I recognize many, many of the recipes as ones that are made by my husband's family. So I feel it is a pretty good source for the basics.
That being said, it leaves much to be desired with the instructions, which would be difficult for someone who doesn't really know how to cook or isn't already familiar with Middle Eastern cooking. For example, the recipe for Ta'maiya, or Falafel instructs you to soak the beans overnight, then drain and "mince" with dill, coriander, etc... Now if I took that literally and attempted to "mince" those items with a kitchen knife, the result would be a disastrous effort in futility and frustration. I know that I need to "mince" them in a food processor, and not your garden variety food processor, you need a good one (i use the cuisinart), to do it, otherwise you will quickly tire out your motor, and will have to process this recipe in about 8 batches, with rest time between each (like I used to do when I had a smaller Oscar food processor). Not to mention that she does not give any indication of how finely the mixture should be minced. This is one example of where some prior knowledge of Egyptian or Middle Eastern cooking (or cooking in general) is necessary to be successful at cooking some of her recipes.
The set up is also a bit annoying, with the recipes numbered, and indexed that way (the index gives the number of the recipe, maybe #198, which just happens to be on page 95.) This is hard to get used to and I can't imagine why it was done this way, unless that is the way cookbooks are written over in Egypt. Not to mention that you may have to do some running around as one recipe's ingredient list may have you running to 3 or 4 other recipes.
She has a good glossary, and list of spices in English and Arabic which is helpful, as well as a list of kitchen utensils that are used in Egypt.
Some of the ingredients are not accurately translated, such as "Tomato Juice" in the recipe for Tomato sauce, stewed. I am pretty sure that she is not referring to Campbell's tomato juice or V-8, instead it should be tomato sauce (like from the can), all the Egyptian people I know that make this dish use the tomato sauce from the can.
I felt that the biggest drawback of this book was, after having read it nearly cover to cover, was that there were hardly any recipes I was "dying" to try out. Usually when I read a cookbook, by the time I get to the end, I have a bunch of scrap papers stuck here and there marking recipes I'd like to try. Not so with this one. Maybe more pictures would have helped, maybe a little more "tasty" of a description, I don't know....something to tickle your taste buds and get you feeling a little hungry.... Perhaps some of the dishes were too mundane (would you want a basic American cookbook with directions for grilled cheese sandwich, scrambled eggs with salt and pepper, or mashed potatoes? This might be helpful if you wanted to know about the basics of everyday American cooking but not so appealing to actually hurry up and try to make)
The directions were too instructive, often 3 or four lines, and not written in a way that made the dishes sound appealing. (no one could guess how delicious ta'maiya is by reading the recipe, and that is unfortunate because there are probably countless delicious recipes in this book that just don't sound that great)
For example, minced meat with vegetables:
Mince beef with vegetables (in this case beef, onion, tomato, parsley, S & P) twice or pound until smooth. Shape into fingers, skewer, and grill basting 1-2 times with cooking oil, or shape into round cakes and fry.
I don't know about you, but I am not running out to the grocery store to get the ingredients to make this tonight!
This is a good basic Egyptian cookbook. There are few of them out there, so if that is what you are looking for specifically, get it because there is little else to choose from (believe it or not, one month after I bought this on Amazon, my father in law showed up with the exact same book that he had bought in Egypt!), and this does give you the basics of Egyptian cooking. I have ordered her other cookbook to see what's in it, as well as another Egyptian cookbook that I just spotted on Amazon. I am interested to see how both of those turn out to be.
If I was rating this book solely on the fact that it is specifically an Egyptian cookbook, I would have given it five stars based on the fact that it is only one of three I have found (one of the others is written by this author)
If I was rating it as a cookbook in general I would have probably have given it 1 or 2 stars because of the above comments.
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Price: $12.95
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