Egypt

Our Egyptian Meal ๐Ÿ‡ช๐Ÿ‡ฌ

We had a great time enjoying our Egyptian meal with our friends Dmitriy, Yelena, Bill and Colleen!
Rob and I made Koshari and Minced Molokhai with Roasted Chicken. Bill and Colleen brought rice pudding and Dmitriy and Yelena brough Baklava. Everything was delicious! We bought an inexpensive back drop, made Egyptian place cards with a key to translate, and printed out Egyptian crowns. It was fun cutting out the crowns and we all looked like kings and queens wearing them. ๐Ÿคช

Koshari is the side dish of all side dishes. It is a combination of brown lentils, macaroni and rice with a sauce made from tomatoes, garlic, Baharat Spice Mix, red chili pepper and red wine vinegar all topped off with fried onions. Baharat Spice Mix is a combination of black pepper, cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. It was interesting to have bean, pasta, and rice all in the same dish but it was delicious!
Our main dish was Roasted Chicken with Molokhai. Molokhai is a type of Corchorus olitorius, what we call jute leaves. In Wikipedia it is described as “slimy like cooked okra” when cooked, which pretty much sums it up. We don’t like slimy okra. ๐Ÿ˜‚ The chicken was boiled then rubbed with a mixture of lime juice, tomato paste, salt and pepper then roasted. The Molokhai, diced and sautรฉed with butter, garlic, and coriander. The chicken was tasty and tender and, despite the slimy texture of the Molokhai, when eaten with the chicken it was pretty good. We were too busy socializing and drinking and forgot to get pictures of all the food. Doh!

About Egypt

Egypt in Arabic is ู…ูŽุตุฑ. It is the 14th-most populated country in the world, with about 110 million inhabitants. It is located in Northern Africa, bordered by the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Egypt operates the Suez Canal that connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, where the container ship crashed into a bank in March 2021 and blocked the waterway for six days. The Nile River, which starts in Egypt, is the longest river in the world, stretching over 4,135 miles. Egypt straddles Africa and Europe and is the only country considered Euroafriasian.

Ancient Egypt was one of the world’s earliest and most influential civilizations. It began around 3100 BCE and lasted until the conquest of Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. Egyptians developed one of the first writing systems, hieroglyphics, which consisted of pictorial symbols representing sounds, words, or ideas. They built monumental structures such as the pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx, and the temples of Karnak and Luxor showcased their architectural prowess.

Dream Egyptian Vacation

We plan to stay in Luxor, Egypt in August of 2027 to see the solar eclipse! How amazing would that be?! The path of totality will measure 160 miles wide, and will cross Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia and the Chagos Islands. Totality will last 6 minutes, 23 seconds in Luxor. We are already working on reserving a place to stay.

We plan to stay after the eclipse to visit sites such as the Valley of the Kings that is home to the tombs of Pharaohs, including the famous Tutankhamun’s Tomb (King Tut’s Tomb). We can’t wait to see the elaborate wall paintings and artifacts that represent ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife. The Giza pyramids are also on our list. They were built as monumental tombs for pharaohs and still stand after thousands of years. We will visit the Great Sphinx  which is a limestone statue with the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh that stands guard over the Giza Plateau. It’s one of the largest and oldest statues in the world. We would also love to take a dinner cruise or a boat tour on the Nile to get views of Egypt from the water.

Tours we are considering. Check them out!

What about you?

Please post your comments below. We love hearing other’s experiences and thoughts!

  • Do you have a favorite meal, recipe or drink from Egypt?
  • Do you have a favorite place that serves food from Egypt?
  • Are you from Egypt or have you ever visited?

El Salvador is Up Next!

Do you have a favorite meal, recipe or drink from El Salvador?

Photos

  1. Cairo from Tower: Wael El Sisi, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  2. Luxor Egypt Boats: ยฉ Vyacheslav Argenberg / http://www.vascoplanet.com/, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  3. Elba National Park: Esraa Farahat, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  4. Stuck Container Ship: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data 2021, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  5. Nile River: Shutterstock
  6. Airbnb: Accommodations.
  7. Airbnb: Accommodations.
  8. Airbnb: Accommodations.
  9. Solar Eclipse Path: https://nationaleclipse.com/maps/map_08022027.html
  10. Luxor Temple: Shutterstock
  11. Valley of the Kings: Wouter Hagens, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  12. Karnak Temple: Dennis G. Jarvis, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
  13. Nile River: File:River Nile map de.svg: * River Nile map.svg: Hel-hamathis file: Furfurderivative work: Arrow303, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

References

Britannica, Country ReportsGeography Now, Global Table Adventures, The Travel Book, shutterstock and Wikipedia.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *