Try Koshari, Egypt's favourite street food - just add a beer and a good film.
Koshari is the closest thing that Egypt has to a national dish. Cheap, filling and convenient, it not only uses up all your leftovers but, also, delightfully, defies all modern-day nutritional wisdom, insisting as it does that you can have rice and pasta and noodles all at once. As well as those three carby pillars (the latter two in the form of macaroni and vermicelli), it also deploys classic store-cupboard staples lentils and chickpeas. And stick some fried onions on the top, why don't you? Then smother with spicy tomato sauce. Sounds like an unusual combo - until you try it. The perfect TV dinner. Click here for the full recipe.
From Issue 21 of The Simple Things, on sale now. Each month The Simple Things features a different national dish in Food From Afar.