Street Food Atlas · Main
Koshari
- Intermediate
- 75 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
Leads with an earthy, grounding base, acid holding everything up to the light, with warmth in the tail.
Ingredients
- 150g brown lentils; 200g rice; 150g small macaroni or broken vermicelli: the three-carb foundation, cooked separately
- 1 can chickpeas, warmed
- The sauce: 500g crushed tomatoes, 4 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp vinegar, 1 tsp cumin, chili to taste
- THE CROWN: 3 onions, sliced thin, dusted in flour, fried patiently to dark crisp tangles: make double; half will disappear
- Da'a: garlic-vinegar-cumin dressing (4 tbsp vinegar, 2 garlic, 1 tsp cumin, splash of water) for the table
The skills inside
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter
Allergen screen
Found: gluten
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Cook lentils, rice and pasta each to its own doneness: the discipline of the dish is respecting three textures.
- Simmer the spiced tomato sauce 15 min; sharpen with vinegar. 15 min
- Fry the onion tangles low and patient to mahogany crunch; salt them.
- Layer in bowls: rice, lentils, pasta, chickpeas, sauce ladled over, onions piled recklessly on top; da'a shaken over at the table.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
The coat before the fry: dredge, crumb, batter 80 recipes
- The coat is continuous before it goes anywhere near the fat: held up to the light, no bare patch of food shows through anywhere, seams and thin edges included.
- It is bonded rather than resting on top: a gentle shake sheds loose dust only, and the coat does not slide off as a sheet when the piece is handled.
- It bubbles hard and steadily from the moment it enters the fat, and the bubbling visibly slows as it finishes; those bubbles are the surface water leaving, and a quiet entry means the fat is too cool.
- Out and drained, it is an even gold-brown all over and it is still crisp several minutes later on a rack; a coat that softens within a minute of coming out never lost its water.
- Broken open, there is no paste of raw flour under the crust and no hollow gap where the coat has lifted away from the food.
Where it goes wrong The fat was below temperature or the pan was crowded, so the coat drank fat instead of sealing against it: it comes out pale and heavy, greasy to the fingers, and slumps off the food as it cools.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Chianti Classico or Barbera d’Alba
- Also Right
- Vermentino for the lighter plates
- From the Taps
- Italian pilsner
- Zero-Proof
- San Pellegrino Sanbittèr
Tomato’s acid demands equal acid: Italian reds evolved beside the sauce, and the regional pairing is the safest law in wine.
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