Koshari: The Ultimate Vegan, Egyptian Comfort Food
The best way to enjoy a carb is layered on top of other carbs
I am forever haunted by a Goop recipe for “Super-Healthy Kosheri,” originally featured in Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook It’s All Good: Delicious Recipes That Will Make You Look Good and Feel Great. I have fond memories of eating koshari — the national dish of Egypt, a meal comprised of rice, macaroni, and lentils, topped with tomato sauce and crispy fried onions — at my Egyptian grandmother’s house. But I could barely recognize the Goop version, which features the most non-traditional, blasphemous ingredients imaginable (quinoa? cinnamon?!).
Don’t get me wrong — I love crunchy health food. The bulk of my diet as a vegan consists of fresh fruits and raw vegetables, but eating koshari isn’t a time to think about whether you “look good and feel great,” which is precisely why I love it so much. It’s best enjoyed by plowing through several bowls while dressed in your comfiest pants, passing out on the couch for a two-hour nap in the aftermath of the ensuing carb coma, then waking up and doing it all over again. In the spirit of doing right by my ancestors, I have considered it my duty ever since to redeem koshari from this clean-eating adulteration and introduce to the uninitiated this perfect food in all its unabashed, carb-laden glory.
