Dear LPG readers,

When I noticed this Egyptian recipe, as usual, I looked at the ingredients and decided that I would know what to do with most of them. However, I did not realise that making this celebrated dish would take quite as long as it did.  

Nothing was complicated, although I found it like making four different dishes all at the same time. That is easy, I hear you saying, and it was. I followed each bit of the recipe to the letter, but the snag soon came. 

I nearly always encounter at least one, no matter how straightforward the instructions appeared before I applied the practicality to the theory of any recipe I follow. 

I started with the chickpeas before frying the onions and putting them aside.  Then came the making of the tomato sauce, and then, while following the method to the letter, I turned my attention to the pasta before working with the lentils and rice, but by the time I had done all that, the tomato sauce was close to burning and had to come off the heat. I had not even started on the rice and lentils at that point, and when I finished, everything was at different heat levels.   

As the recipe mentions, the construction of this dish is pivotal. But in my rush to ensure all the components were hot, I made a bit of a mess, with my layers looking more like a volcanic eruption than the assembly in the picture I was trying to copy. But, for all that, it tasted good.

After all the complications of this month’s attempt at national cooking, I have decided to find a celebration dish I firmly believe I will have trouble not getting right.  With that in mind, I have offered something Moldavian called Watermelon Pickles. And as pickling traditionally takes time, it should, at least, not be a rush job… 

CB, Lewisham.

CB shares her pickling plans for next month…

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