About our guest:
Dyana Eldaief put together 50 easy-to-follow recipes that are rich with vegetables, legumes, and meats. in Egyptian Flavors: 50 Recipes, Eldaief calls forth the sun-baked land of the Nile and invites food lovers to bring new exciting flavors to their home kitchen.
Eldiaef has appeared on the Middle East edition of the reality television cooking show The Taste. She is active on YouTube and Instagram and offers classes on her website.
About the Book:
This charming, pocket-sized collection of recipes is the perfect introduction to Egyptian cooking. From classic starters and breakfast dishes like ta‘miya (falafel) and fuul medammis (slow-cooked fava beans), to well-loved main meals such as stuffed cabbage leaves (mahshi cromb), and mouthwatering almond pudding and fritter balls soaked in syrup, Egyptian Flavors leads you on a wonderful discovery of this unique and delightful cuisine.
Below, please read selected parts of our conversation that’s been edited for reading eyes.
We talked with Dyna Eldaief, celebrity chef of Egyptian cuisine. We focused on light, easy-to-make, and easy-to-digest food. Although the conversation happened during Ramadan, I think we look for the same recipes all year long, especially during the summer time.
Here, we prepared the following conversation for you to read and get inspired.
What is your first suggestion for a healthy, light, and nutritious food in Egyptian cuisine?
Well, I think there are a few very, very yummy go-to dishes. Mashi Wara’ Enab is a very, very popular dish to prepare.
So Mashi is the stuffed and Wara’ Enab is the vine leaf; the leaf from the grape vine. It’s very similar to the Dolma from Greek cuisine.
They are more delicate roll and it is served hot [in Egyptian cooking]. And it’s a really refreshing and nice, has a squeeze of lemon juice. And it really, it’s a lovely, lovely end to it.
How do you fold Mashi Wara’ Enab?
You put your meat across the end, your rice and mince that’s already prepared. And then you fold the end and then you flip the sides over and then you roll down your hand. That gives you a very, very neat roll.
[Please watch the video]
Why do you think that Mashi is a good and light dish?
it’s very light dish. It’s just got a little bit of stuffing. You have a lovely flavors of lemon juice at the end. And sometimes when you cook, you put some lamb bones in there so you can get the flavor of that. The dish is not very meaty or very heavy. It’s quite light and nice.
You also explained that Fuul Medammis is your favorite dish, how come?
It’s made from broad beans or fava beans. And that’s really slow-cooked. Sometimes that’s like cooked over several hours, sometimes seven or eight hours. Very, very gently cooked.
Then you pop the beans out of their skin. [To add flavor] I like to have a little bit of onion, some cucumber, I like Lebanese cucumber. You finely diced them with some tomato, which is finely diced [add oil and lemon juice].
Why do you think falafel is an internationally famous dish?
Well, I think falafel or Ta’miya, is very, very international. It’s become popular because it’s varied throughout the Middle East region. In Lebanon, the falafel is made with chickpeas.
In Egypt, it’s not. It’s made with fuul medammis. So you use fava beans, or broad beans. It is paired with very, very fresh herbs. For instance, you’ve got spring onion and parsley and you’ve got just a vibrancy of green fresh herbs. It is a light food, however, you fry it and make it ready.
So I think [humus] really does have a lot of nutritional benefits and it’s light.
Why do you think that Mediterranean cuisine is a good one?
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Well, from my understanding, and I’ve been interested in the Egyptian cuisine for many decades … well, over two decades now, my research over that period of time, and the research that has come out, has shown that the Mediterranean diet is full of healthy oils.
It has a lot of grains, nuts, legumes, and lots of herbs. Those are really, really very good for our bodies. Also, Mediterranean diet isn’t full of excess heavy foods and heavily processed food.
Where I am here in Australia, meat is a very big part of a lot of people’s diet.
What are the major differences between Australian cuisine and Egyptian cuisine?
Yeah, that’s a really good question. In Australia, I think predominantly at meal times we usually have meat and three vegie-kind of options. You’ll hear that a lot thrown around, “meat and three vegie.”
And a lot of time that’s cooked outside on a barbecue or certainly in the summer months, you’ll have a lot of meat that’s cooked outside. That may be sausages, steak, which is very, very common. You’ll have hamburgers also very common. And these are mainly very heavy, saturated fats.
But it’s not the case in Mediterranean or Egyptian cuisine. I think just generally speaking, you’ll find that there is a variety of dishes. It doesn’t center only around red meat. You do get a lot of the grains and you do have a lot of things like tabbouleh and you have mashi, which are stuffed, but they only have a small amount of meat in with the stuffing.
So you’ve got a lot of vegetable in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean diet. So I think that’s really where it’s different.
What are the major differences between Turkish, Iranian or Lebanese cuisines and the Egyptian cuisine?
I think with most of the differences you’ll find is either in the way that it’s cooked, or the ingredients they use.
So as we’ve talked about earlier, you can find dolma. The Greek version, they make theirs and serve cold. In Egypt, it’s served hot. They’re much more delicate, flavored with lamb and with lemon juice.
Also, the style of cooking is very different.
Also I think the Greeks tend to use a lot of meat with herbs and rice in their Mashi, whereas in Egypt it’s more herbs.
In Turkish and in Lebanese cuisines, there are changes in the ingredients that they use.
We talked about ta’miya or falafel, which has chickpeas in the Lebanese version. And in Egypt they don’t use chickpeas, they’ll use broad beans to make theirs.
The herbs are more prominent. I think in the Egyptian version you’ll find that it’s more moist and very vibrantly green. So it’s full of those colors and herbs.
What is your favorite dish?
Just one good question. I know I should have just a single answer for this and I don’t because I like so many. My kids absolutely adore Molokhiya.
As a birthday dinner treat every year, my kids get to choose their own dish that they want me to make. And for many years, I’d say over 10 years, they all chose Molokhiya on their birthdays. So it’s something that I’ve grown to enjoy more because I see the joy when they eat it.
Personally I loved, I really love a roast chicken in the oven and just very mildly sort of seasoned.
Raw Footage of the Interview with Dyna Eldaief
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