Koshari

Ingredients

• Short-grain rice300 g
• Brown lentils200 g
• Small pasta200 g
• Chickpeas — cooked200 g
• Onions — in thin rings4
• Tinned tomatoes800 g
• Garlic6 clove
• White vinegar4 tbsp
• Ground cumin2 tsp
• Chilli flakes1 tsp
• Neutral oil200 ml
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Fry the onion in the oil over medium heat for twenty-five minutes to a deep brown, stirring. Drain it on paper; it crisps as it cools.

   25 min

2. 2

   Boil the lentils for twenty minutes to soft but not collapsing, and drain.

   20 min

3. 3

   Cook the rice in the onion oil: fry it two minutes, add water at one and a half to one and cook covered for fifteen minutes.

   18 min

4. 4

   Boil the pasta and drain it. For the sauce, fry the garlic in a spoon of oil to gold, pour in the vinegar and let it reduce by half.

   12 min

5. 5

   Add the tomatoes, cumin and chilli and cook twenty minutes to a thick sauce. Season.

   20 min

6. 6

   Build it in the bowl in layers: rice, lentils, pasta, chickpeas, sauce, fried onion. The mixing happens at the table.

About the dish

Koshari is assembled from three cooked starches — rice, lentils and pasta — each boiled separately. They cannot be cooked together: all three take different times and behave differently in water.

The daqqa sauce — garlic fried to gold and doused with vinegar — is stirred into the tomato. That vinegar is what makes koshari koshari rather than rice with pasta.

The fried onion has to be dark, right on the edge of bitter. Pale onion gives sweetness but not the dry crunch it is there for.

Worth knowing

• — The onion oil left after frying is valuable: the rice is cooked in it and the lentils dressed with it. Pouring it away throws out half the flavour.
• — Vinegar is also served separately, in a bottle. In Egypt everyone adds their own straight into the bowl.
• — All three starches can be cooked ahead. Koshari is assembled from warm components in five minutes.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

640 kcal

Protein

22 g

Fat

18 g

Carbs

100 g

More from Egypt

• Ful medames — Fava beans stewed to a cream with olive oil, lemon and cumin.