Koshari

Koshari layers rice, brown lentils, small pasta and chickpeas in one bowl, topped with a spiced tomato sauce, a garlic-vinegar dressing and a heap of crisp fried onions. On paper it is three starches at once; in practice it is one of the world's great cheap meals.

Its origins appear to be nineteenth-century and genuinely multicultural. The name and the rice-and-lentil base connect to the South Asian khichri, likely carried by soldiers and workers during the British colonial period, while the pasta reflects Italian influence in Egypt and the tomato is a New World import.

It became the archetypal Egyptian street food: filling, entirely plant-based, and cheap enough to be a daily meal for working people. Dedicated koshari shops serve almost nothing else.

Each element is cooked separately and combined at the moment of serving, so the textures stay distinct. Rice is often cooked with a little vermicelli, lentils are simmered until tender but intact, and the pasta is usually small macaroni or ditalini.

The tomato sauce is sharpened with vinegar and spiced with cumin and chilli, and it is poured over rather than stirred in. A separate garlic-and-vinegar sauce called dakka adds a further sour kick, and a chilli sauce called shatta is offered for heat.

The fried onions are not a garnish but a structural component. They are cooked slowly until deeply browned and crisp, and their sweetness and crunch are what lift the dish above its humble parts.

The bowl arrives assembled but unmixed, and the first move is to stir everything together thoroughly so every spoonful gets sauce, onion and all four bases.

Portions are large and prices low. It is served fast, eaten fast, and traditionally accompanied by nothing more than the sauces already on the table.

Because it contains no animal products in its standard form, it has become a default meal for vegetarians and during Coptic fasting periods, when many Egyptians abstain from meat and dairy.