Street Food with a Twist

Cairo Kitchen is a wonderful new addition to the very limited amount of books available on Egyptian cuisine. It is fun to read and to cook from and, although not specifically written for vegetarians, they will find plenty of inspiration in this book. With its beautiful photography, it is a great gift for anyone who loves cooking, Egyptian food and Cairo Kitchen restaurant.
Do not expect a solid cookery course in Egyptian food preparation, because Cairo Kitchen is more of a fun cookbook to browse through for inspiration. Beautiful photographs and short introductions to each dish make you want to try new things, just like the chefs at Cairo Kitchen do. Yes, we all know Tahina, but why not try the Carrot Tahina or their all-time bestseller, Beetroot Tahina? The dishes featured in Cairo Kitchen are as vibrant in color as the restaurant itself, adding to the joy one gets from trying out new flavor combinations. All dishes have their roots in tradition, but many are presented here with a little contemporary twist, making them often healthier and less fatty than their authentic version.
While the photos of food are beautiful, it seems there would be an opportunity for Egyptian food stylists and photographers to go into this growing field. A drawback of the book is that it seems to be written by good cooks who love what they do, rather than professional cookbook writers. This leads to some confusion when it comes to the order of the chapters and explanations. Sometimes a culinary term or dish mentioned earlier in the book gets explained in detail only much later. For instance, there are different chapters for breakfast, mezze and street food items, while many dishes such as fuul and ta’meya could be placed under all of these headings. This sometimes causes a repetition in explanations, which could have easily been avoided by adding a short glossary or an explanatory introduction to the cookbook.

Culinary terms and ingredients are not always correctly explained either. Couscous is described as tiny dough balls and the author suggests that you can substitute Gibna Rumi (Rumi cheese) for Parmesan cheese, which would make Italians for sure shake their heads in disbelief and any professional chef or gourmand for that matter! Also, the words taste and flavor are used interchangeably throughout the book. Somehow it feels like the book has been published in a haste, while it would have benefited from another good round of proofreading.

Reviewed by Mirjam van IJssel