Learn to COOK - Egyptian Cooking: A Practical Guide
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List Price: $12.95
Our Price: $10.36
Your Save: $ 2.59 ( 20% )
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Manufacturer: Hippocrene Books
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5962
EAN: 9780781806435
ISBN: 0781806437
Label: Hippocrene Books
Manufacturer: Hippocrene Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 199
Publication Date: 1998-06
Publisher: Hippocrene Books
Studio: Hippocrene Books
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Editorial Reviews:
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Originally published in Egypt, this ever-popular guide to Egyptian cooking has now been revised for a North American audience. Egyptian cuisine has been influenced by several Mediterranean culinary traditions, including Turkish, Palestinian, Lebanese, Greek and Syrian. These nearly 400 recipes, all adapted for the North American kitchen, represent the best of authentic Egyptian home cooking. From appetizers to desserts, some recipes included are `Arnabit musa a'a (Moussaka Cauliflower), Samak bi-l-tahina (Fish with Tahina Sauce), Kosa matbukha bi-l-zabadi (Zucchini Stewed in Yogurt), and Lahma mu'assaga (Savory Minced Beef). The chapters included are Mezze, Breakfast, Main Courses, Sweets and Desserts, Beverages, Kitchen Utensils, and Spices. This classic cookbook also includes a glossary of Arabic terms for ingredients, translated into English, and useful tips on shopping and using traditional cooking utensils.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: No frills instuctions, good for basics of egyptian cooking....
Comment: I've had this book for a couple of years now. This is a good book that gives a lot of Egyptian recipes made by every-day Egyptian people. I recognize many, many of the recipes as ones that are made by my husband's family. So I feel it is a pretty good source for the basics.
That being said, it leaves much to be desired with the instructions, which would be difficult for someone who doesn't really know how to cook or isn't already familiar with Middle Eastern cooking. For example, the recipe for Ta'maiya, or Falafel instructs you to soak the beans overnight, then drain and "mince" with dill, coriander, etc... Now if I took that literally and attempted to "mince" those items with a kitchen knife, the result would be a disastrous effort in futility and frustration. I know that I need to "mince" them in a food processor, and not your garden variety food processor, you need a good one (i use the cuisinart), to do it, otherwise you will quickly tire out your motor, and will have to process this recipe in about 8 batches, with rest time between each (like I used to do when I had a smaller Oscar food processor). Not to mention that she does not give any indication of how finely the mixture should be minced. This is one example of where some prior knowledge of Egyptian or Middle Eastern cooking (or cooking in general) is necessary to be successful at cooking some of her recipes.
The set up is also a bit annoying, with the recipes numbered, and indexed that way (the index gives the number of the recipe, maybe #198, which just happens to be on page 95.) This is hard to get used to and I can't imagine why it was done this way, unless that is the way cookbooks are written over in Egypt. Not to mention that you may have to do some running around as one recipe's ingredient list may have you running to 3 or 4 other recipes.
She has a good glossary, and list of spices in English and Arabic which is helpful, as well as a list of kitchen utensils that are used in Egypt.
Some of the ingredients are not accurately translated, such as "Tomato Juice" in the recipe for Tomato sauce, stewed. I am pretty sure that she is not referring to Campbell's tomato juice or V-8, instead it should be tomato sauce (like from the can), all the Egyptian people I know that make this dish use the tomato sauce from the can.
I felt that the biggest drawback of this book was, after having read it nearly cover to cover, was that there were hardly any recipes I was "dying" to try out. Usually when I read a cookbook, by the time I get to the end, I have a bunch of scrap papers stuck here and there marking recipes I'd like to try. Not so with this one. Maybe more pictures would have helped, maybe a little more "tasty" of a description, I don't know....something to tickle your taste buds and get you feeling a little hungry.... Perhaps some of the dishes were too mundane (would you want a basic American cookbook with directions for grilled cheese sandwich, scrambled eggs with salt and pepper, or mashed potatoes? This might be helpful if you wanted to know about the basics of everyday American cooking but not so appealing to actually hurry up and try to make)
The directions were too instructive, often 3 or four lines, and not written in a way that made the dishes sound appealing. (no one could guess how delicious ta'maiya is by reading the recipe, and that is unfortunate because there are probably countless delicious recipes in this book that just don't sound that great)
For example, minced meat with vegetables:
Mince beef with vegetables (in this case beef, onion, tomato, parsley, S & P) twice or pound until smooth. Shape into fingers, skewer, and grill basting 1-2 times with cooking oil, or shape into round cakes and fry.
I don't know about you, but I am not running out to the grocery store to get the ingredients to make this tonight!
This is a good basic Egyptian cookbook. There are few of them out there, so if that is what you are looking for specifically, get it because there is little else to choose from (believe it or not, one month after I bought this on Amazon, my father in law showed up with the exact same book that he had bought in Egypt!), and this does give you the basics of Egyptian cooking. I have ordered her other cookbook to see what's in it, as well as another Egyptian cookbook that I just spotted on Amazon. I am interested to see how both of those turn out to be.
If I was rating this book solely on the fact that it is specifically an Egyptian cookbook, I would have given it five stars based on the fact that it is only one of three I have found (one of the others is written by this author)
If I was rating it as a cookbook in general I would have probably have given it 1 or 2 stars because of the above comments.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Practical Egyptian Cooking sans Pictures
Comment: This is an authentic cookbook, it's been around for almost 20 years, and I've happily made a variety of recipes. The instructions are brief, and helpful. The Iman Bayaldi is prepared different than the style I'm used to..and still very good. Most dishes have 6 or less ingredients...pretty easy to gather up! If it had pictures, I'd have rated it higher--it's so helpful to have the right "look" for authenticity. There's over 300 recipes. The recipes are for 4-6 persons, easy to adjust.The table of contents is sparse; the index can have you running around a bit through the book. Chicken gizzards are not under "chicken" but are under "gizzards"! Beans are separate from lentils...logical, but not always intuitive...not a big drawback! some ingredients are, of course, hard to find if not near a Middle Eastern market...the internet should take care of ordering mastic grains, molokhiya (fresh or frozen), etc...Most ingredients are easily available in the USA. It has recipes for the classics, and also for brains, pigeon, rabbit, trotters, tripe, sheeps head etc...this is not a frou-frou book!
If you want a broader taste of Middle Eastern foods, get Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern food.. to get a rich feel for Egytian and other similar cuisines which blend together...
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Classic for Egyptian Cooking
Comment: This is a must have cookbook for anyone interested in Egyptian cuisine. Samia Abdelnour selected a variety of recipes that are easy to prepare with ingredients that are available locally. She cleverly included a glossary explaining the different foods, spices, kitchen utensils and also some useful hints. This is a value priced book considering the amount of recipes included in it. I have other Mediterranean cookbooks, but I find myself using this one more often. It's size makes it also very handy to use in the kitchen.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Outstanding in its variety and amount of recipes!
Comment: I have had the pleasure of using this book in my kitchen for two years now. I can honestly say that there is not a week that goes by that I don't find use for it! Although it is a bit difficult to ignore the page numbers and concentrate on the numbers assigned to each recipe, the outcome is well worth it! This book supplies an amazing number of recipes from every imaginable region of Egypt and many of the variations for each. I applaud the writer's insightful inclusion of such items as a spice index at the end of the book, and technoiques for handling foods not commonly used by Westerners. I would have liked some illustrations to assist with presentation, but all in all I am very pleased with the outcomes of my endeavors
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