Cooking Around the World Part 5: Egypt
E is for Egypt.
"We didn’t immigrate for the money or the career,” my father says now. “We immigrated for the children."
- Egyptian-American Chef Michael Mina
As I’ve mentioned previously, I started this “cook my way around the world” journey, as a reaction to the event of November, 2024. Today, nearly five months later, I think the prevailing feeling that I am feeling now - after plowing through anger, shock, and fear - is grief and terms like “self-care” and “creativity” I am not sure apply at the moment. Hopefully at some point I will come back around to the creative feeling I had when I started this, but some days are better than others. Right now, maybe the word to focus on the word is resilience.
So, this is my long-winded way of saying that I am no longer liking the subtitle I chose for this project and have decided to abandon it. Who knows, maybe I’ll change it again, and maybe I will look back at some point and view evolving subtitle choices as a reminder of what I was feeling at the time. Not that anyone reading this might care or even notice. It’s just something I wanted to mention to those of you eagle-eyed readers.
Anyway, for my first March recipes - the letter E - I chose Egypt. And not only did I choose Egypt, I made not one, but two recipes! My original plan was to experiment with different types of dukkahs, but then felt like that was kind of basic like my last post, so I decided to add something else to. “What’s a dukkah?” you ask. Well, I’ll tell you. A dukkah, or duqqa, is pretty simply a mix of seeds, nuts, and spices that are toasted, ground, mixed together and then used as a topping, dip, or crust. They are very versatile and can be used in lots of different ways.
For my second recipe, I chose kofta, which are grilled meat kebabs that are a staple of many different cuisines and are - according to my friend Wikipedia - considered part of the “meatball and meatloaf family”. Not a bad family to be a part of if you ask me.
This may look like a lot more ingredients than I normally use, but keep in mind, this is for both the dukkahs and the koftas. Most of the ingredients I had on hand, but I did have to pick up the coriander seeds.
Dukkah spice mix:
For the dukkah, you can choose your own selection of nuts, seeds, and spices. I chose a simple and traditional dukkah - actually I wound up making two dukkahs, so I can now claim that I am making three recipes for this post - one with regular peanuts and one with pistachios. For both, I used about a half cup of each ingredient. You can also play around with the ratios to find your perfect blend. That’s part of the fun.
Peanuts - plain, not dry-roasted. Those might be good as well, but will change the flavor profile
Pistachios - I chose unsalted, plain pistachios
For both of the nuts, I chose unsalted so I could control the salt content. Feel free to experiment. Go nuts! (see what I did there?)Whole coriander seeds
Whole cumin seeds
Sesame seeds
Salt and pepper to taste
Add the seeds to a dry pan and slowly toast them until they begin to brown and become fragrant. Be careful not to burn them. Set them aside to cool.
Toast the nuts in the same fashion and set them aside to cool. I toasted the pistachios first and then the peanuts because the peanuts will give off more oil than the pistachios and I didn’t want to mix the flavors at this point. You might want to pat the peanuts dry with a paper towel. You don’t have to worry too much about the skins, everything is getting ground up, but you can pick them out if you want.
When the seed mix has cooled, grind them into a powder. You can use a mortar and pestle if you are feeling ambitious or need to work out some emotions or just make it easy and use a food processor. Set the ground seeds aside.
Wipe the food processor and add the pistachios. Pulse the pistachios until they are crumbly but not powdery. Set them aside and pulse the peanuts. Set them aside.
Now you can start mixing the pulsed nuts with the seed-turned-powdered spice mix. I created two separate dukkahs, one with the pistachios and one with the peanuts.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Store in an air-tight jar.
You can use your dukkah on just about anything. Sprinkle on salads, veggies, or use as a crust for meat or fish. Try different combinations of nuts and spices - the possibilities are really endless.
Ok, now I am wondering if I should have taken on the kofta in this post. It’s already running long, but I am on a roll, so I am going to keep going. For this recipe, I have linked my source below and I did make a couple of swaps. I only used beef and not a mix of beef and lamb, and I used regular breadcrumbs, not a hot dog roll. I also used a pre-mixed spice mix that I had in my pantry that was pretty damn close to the separate spices listed in the recipe. This recipe is also flexible and can be adjusted to accommodate what you might already have on hand.
Kofta Kebabs:
1 lb. ground beef (or a mix and lamb and beef)
1 small white or yellow onion, grated and drained of its liquid
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1 egg
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped
1/8 - 1/4 cup spice mix, generally containing: ground cumin, ground coriander, ground cinnamon, ground mint, ground sumac. If you have these spices on hand, great. If not, you can look for a pre-packaged Middle Eastern spice mix at the grocery store or a specialty market if you have one. There are many ways to find them online, as well. I used this one that I found locally.
Salt and pepper to taste
Break up the meat up into a mixing bowl
Sprinkle the breadcrumbs, parsley, spice mix, salt and pepper, and the drained, grated onion over the meat.
Beat the egg in a separate bowl and add it to the meat.
Mix it all together with your hands or a wooden spoon and make sure all the ingredients are incorporated equally.
Shape the kofta into a cylinder or log shape. There are different methods for making the shapes and for cooking. You can leave the skewer if you are planning to grill them (soak the skewers first) or carefully remove it if you are planning to bake them. You can also shape them by hand or make round meatballs.
Bake (or grill) them at 375° F for 10 minutes and then flip and cook for 10 more minutes. If baking, you can finish them in a cast iron grill pan to get some caramelization and grill marks.
Serve hot off the grill or the pan.
You can serve them with just about anything. A side salad, in a pita with tzatziki, or with roasted or grilled vegetables. For the meal I made, I served the kofta with roasted carrots drizzled with a honey-lemon-Greek yogurt sauce and topped with the pistachio dukkah. The carrots were one of the best things I think I ever made, and I can’t wait to try the dukkah on other things.
All of this cooking took about an hour or so, and if I had only chosen to do one recipe, it would have gone even faster. Now that the weather is warming up, I will definitely try these again, but on the grill instead of the oven. I’d also like to try them with the lamb next time. As part of my “research” for this post, I wound up buying Michael Mina’s new book, My Egypt: Cooking from My Roots, and I’m looking forward to looking through it to see what other great Egyptian recipes are in it for me to try.
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The recipe sources I used include mainly Amira’s Pantry for the dukkah and the kofta. I also looked at The Mediterranean Dish, and Michael Mina’s new book, My Egypt: Cooking from My Roots. Tho original inspiration for the carrots came from a recipe Kevin Gillespie made on S17, E11 of Top Chef.
© 2025 Kim Selby & Storm Your Brain, LLC. All rights reserved. All photography © Kim Selby unless otherwise credited.