My 42 Cent Dinner

We were out visiting friends a couple of days ago.  This friend and family live close by and our route home took us by the neighborhood Koshary shop.  Koshary, you may recall from previous posts, is a staple of the Egyptian diet.  This time, we are buying it from a shop on the corner near the Vodafone store.  There are always people in line, no one speaks English, the pace is furious.  And I forgot my camera.  Here is the plastic bag for takeaway offered as a consolation picture.


The price for one person is 3 pounds Egyptian - about 42 cents.  Here is what I find when I get home and open the bag.


The plastic container hold the pasta, rice, lentils, garbanzo beans and most important, the fried onions on top.


The three tied plastic bags contain the "secret sauces."  On the left, a great tomato sauce, then lemon sauce and on the right, just a bit of very hot sauce.  Tomato sauce is found on most things here - there are some exceptions.  We'll talk about one tomorrow.  But tomatoes are coming and going by the truckload.


They are firm and ripe as you would expect from a Minnesota Farmer's Market around Labor Day.  They are a good excuse by themselves  for coming to Egypt.

Linda is following a "much reduced carb" regimen so she stayed with the leftover chicken from the previous night.  (Don't worry, she didn't eat the bread.)


If you want some Koshary of your own, there are a couple of recipes on this blog if you just enter Koshary in the search box at the top.  Otherwise, here are two recipes.