Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I've been married to an Egyptian guy for 8 years--and ever since, I've been searching out Egyptian and Middle Eastern cookbooks. I have all of the main Egyptian ones, including Claudia Roden's "New Book of Middle Eastern Food", Samia Abdennour's "Egyptian Cooking", Sally Elias Hanna's "Dining on the Nile", Collette Rossant's "Memories of a Lost Egypt," and Magda Medhwany's "My Egyptian Grandmother's Kitchen."
The recipes in "Nile Style" are easy and accessible to the average American--yet they are pretty much authentic. I wondered from the description if I'd be receiving ancient, but unpalatable, recipes--but that's not the case. All of the recipes here are used by Modern Egyptians--and are still very much a part of every day Egyptian cuisine. What I liked about Amy's book in particular was that she offers some things I haven't seen in others--such as the drink recipes (basically layering different fruit nectars) as well as the restaurant recommendations for not only Cairo, but also Alexandria and Luxor. She also includes recipes from Southern Egypt which is typically ignored in most other cookbooks which focus on mainly Cairo, with some fish recipes from Alexandria. I also learned about the dessert truffles, which I had never heard about.
Her recipe for aish baladi is the best I've found. I couldn't find the unprocessed bran in my local stores, so I substituted toasted wheat germ (cereal aisle) and it worked very well. She includes the Egyptian-home style favorite "macarona bechamel"--which is similar to Greek pastito. The Egyptians I know use a typical French bechamel when making it, but I liked learning Amy's approach which mixes chicken/beef stock with the milk. It makes a very rich meal, slightly lighter. Her hawashi dough is excellent--very close to the stuff one finds on the street, but her filing was not traditional for me. I think "My Egyptian Grandmother.." does a better job with her mixture of ground meat, allspice, chopped carrot, green pepper, and garlic. Her fuul is a bit boring--I think I would have preferred to see some more variations--such as cooking/mashing the fuul with garlic, onion, tomatoes, and tahini, etc. Heating up a can of fuul isn't really a recipe to me. :) See Claudia Roden for how to actually cook the dried beans. The chicken shwarma was very good and one of the best I've found for doing it at home. Nothing is going to compare to something roasted on a vertical roaster--but this is good. I recommend squeezing some fresh lemon juice on it as you take it out of the oven. The masa'a was good--and I tried the unorthodox suggestion of adding cheese on top which my family loved. I also loved her serving suggestion for fattah in using the ramekins.
The book contains lots of dessert recipes--and the few I've tried have been good. I like how she including the baklava with cream recipe--as it's a wonderful variation that many Americans have never had. I'm also eager to try the double chocolate baklava.
Although not mentioned (or perhaps I missed it), you can always use ground beef for any recipe calling for ground lamb. It won't be exactly the same--but it works well and nearly every recipe that calls for ground lamb is made with both in Egypt.
The book has some nice pictures and is a good, if small, size. If you are at all interested in Egyptian cooking, I highly recommend adding it to your library. I'd also recommend Claudia Roden's and Sally Elias Hanna's books as well. Those are the ones I keep coming back to.
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