vegetarian – no counterspace

(vegan) Saniyet Batates

(this post doesn’t start vegan, but keep reading to the second attempt!)

I’ve been taking a class on food and culture in the Islamic Middle East, and my assigned country to research is Egypt. As part of this, I’ve been looking at Egyptian cookbooks.

I started with Egyptian Cooking: A Practical Guide by Samia Abdennour, published in 1984 by the American University in Cairo Press. It looked very sensible and traditional with bare bones recipes and no pictures. The cookbook inspired confidence that this is recording traditional cooking. There were 2 versions presented: one with veal and the other with beef, but all of the same ingredients and quantities for both. I figured I would give it a try.

Here are the recipes as published in the cookbook:
MC 180 SANIYET BATATES, NAY FI NAY – Casserole of potatoes (1)
1 kg potatoes, peeled and sliced 2cms thick
1/2 kg beef
4-6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped coarsely
12-15 garlic cloves, halved diagonally
2 onions, sliced thinly
2 cups tomato juice
salt and pepper

Cut beef into bite-sized cubes. Put all the ingredients together in an oven pot, cover with seasoned tomato juice and cook in preheated moderate oven for 1-2 hours.

MC 181 SANIYET BATATES – Casserole of potatoes (2)
1 kg potatoes, peeled and sliced 2cms thick
1/2 kg veal
3-6 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped coarsely
12-15 garlic cloves, halved diagonally
2 onions, sliced thinly
2 cups tomato juice
cooking oil
salt and pepper

Peel and slice potatoes 2cms thick. Cut veal into small cubes. Peel and chop tomatoes coarsely. Peel garlic and halve diagonally. Slice onions very thin, keeping all items separate.

Saute onions, add tomato juice and cook for 10 minutes. Add [meat,] garlic and seasoning and cook for another 10 minutes.

Arrange sliced potatoes in lightly-greased oven dish, bury the meat mixture among the slices and cover with the cooked tomato sauce. Bake in slow oven for about 1 hour.

Now I didn’t have a full kilogram of potatoes handy and was only cooking for 1 person, so I scaled the recipe down a bit.

mise en place with an empty donabe, 2 sad potatoes, 5 peeled garlic cloves, 1 small peeled white onion, 1 can of peeled plum tomatoes, and a bowl with small cubes of beef

I had 2 russet potatoes that were not in great shape. (I had purchased them on delivery instead of looking them over in the store, and this batch was damaged. The delivery place gave me a full refund for the potatoes after I sent them a picture. Then I split up the bag with a few people so we could use them up before they went off. So I washed them and peeled them and sliced them into thick rounds and put them in the casserole dish. And this is where I had my first misgivings – when I’m building a dish like this, I usually like to put the onions between the bottom of the dish and the main meat (or in this case potatoes) so that there’s less worry about sticking and burning. But we’re trying to follow the recipe here!

Donabe filled with potatoes with small beef cubes tucked all around and thinly sliced onions on top. There are also garlic slices in there, but none are showing in the picture.

Once I had a solid layer of potatoes in there, I started tucking the garlic pieces and the small beef cubes around the potatoes. And then I (foolishly!) decided to not get another pan dirty by precooking the onions in the tomato juice, like in the second recipe, and just add them directly the way the first recipe says/implies. I added the tomato juice from the pan and sliced some of the tomatoes on top. Then it went in the oven!

donabe with a cooked dish with potatoes in thin liquid and you can see the other ingredients – tomatoes, beef, and onions – looking a little dry and cooked with some small amounts of burning, especially right around the edge of the bowl where liquid bubbled up the sides.

After about an hour and a half, it was smelling pretty good and like food, so I gave the potatoes a poke with a fork – they were still fairly firm, so back they went for another half hour. Then I waited for the potatoes to cool enough to eat and I was very optimistic about this dish.

It was terrible! The potatoes might have been cooked, but they were not soft and none of the sauce had penetrated to flavor the potatoes. And the onions! I don’t know how, but the onions tasted even more strongly of raw onion flavor after cooking than they did before! Nothing went together and it put me off of using that whole cookbook!

But this should be a viable dish! It sounds so simple, stable, and reliable. So I went looking to see if it appeared in other cookbooks. Of the ones I checked, nothing particularly close appeared.

And then I found a food blogger with a VEGAN version! https://cheznermine.com/2026/03/27/authentic-egyptian-potato-bake-saneyet-batates/

screencapture of the start of Chez Nermine’s page about Saneyet Batates – site linked to picture if you want to click through

And this was more like it! With detailed instructions, discussions about ingredient varieties, and even a video recap. So this time I made it for lunch with a friend. She has been having chemo on Friday afternoons and then I’ll pick her up and make a meal before the nausea kicks in. It has all of the fun of dining out with none of the risks of dining in public while immunocompromised. So I asked her opinions about the ingredients, and she asked for minimal garlic and onions and that it not be particularly spicy, so those are the big changes here.

Using an 8″x8″ casserole dish, I started with some oil in the base. And then I added about 1-2 Tablespoons (not measured, just was left in the container I had) of dried shallots (to replace the fresh onions) and the spices – this version called for spices, so that’s exciting – ground coriander (the last one the ones I dried from my 2025 garden), ground cumin (from the Egyptian cumin a former couchsurfer had brought me!), dry oregano (also dried from my garden), and a generous sprinkle of paprika (a little more generous than the recipe because I’m trying to use up that container). And then that got kind of mixed together.

This time, I was using a fresh bag of yukon gold potatoes. Even though the directions say to slice one inch thick, looking at her video I decided to slice them closer to half an inch thick. And then I sliced up some fresh bell peppers without any spiciness to them. That gets tossed with the spices to distribute as evenly as possible.

I still used the same kind of canned whole tomatoes, so I first poured out some of the liquid and mixed it with tomato paste and vegetable soup base. Then I sliced the tomatoes on top again and poured the enriched liquid over everything. The whole large-sized can was perfect for this size casserole dish.

And then I cooked it – first on the stovetop and then in the oven. But for much longer than called for because my friend’s appointment ran later then I’d been expecting. By about an hour and a half. I had been planning the switch to the oven for right when I left the house, but it ended up almost completely finished before she even called me for a pickup. So I made sure there was enough liquid and that the heat was just high enough to keep a low bubbly simmer but low enough to not dry out or misbehave while I was out of the house.

Finished dish of tomatoes that have turned orange from braising in the tomato sauce and small chunks of tomato and pepper in a saucy base.

We came back in the house, and the smell was amazing! The potatoes were very hot, but that gave us some time to chat while waiting for it to cool.

I still had a little ruqaq (an Arabic thin crepe-like bread) left from an experiment, so we used that as a base layer to soak up the sauce. And we had ~~feta~~ brined white cheese on the side.

A plate made up with the potatoes on top of a layer of soaked flatbread and some white cheese on the side

This version ended up amazing! A+ Would make again. The spiced tomato broth flavored the potatoes all the way through, and it was just the right amount of warm and comforting without being too heavy for lunch.

Let’s also do a quick roundup of Egyptian food blogs I found:

Chez Nermine: authored by Nermine Mansour, who was born in Egypt, a former Egyptian diplomat (her husband still seems to be a diplomat), and lives in Virginia (united states). Oldest recipe posted 17 August 2017; most recent recipe 3 April 2026. Primarily Coptic, she has recipes tagged for Christian, Islamic, and Jewish holidays and includes both vegan and meat. Has a recipe for macarona forn, saneyet batates, koshari, and molokhia. Tagline is Raising the Flag of Egyptian Cuisine. Likelihood of using: 10/10 (see above)

TheEgyptianCook: Signature cooking by Muhammed Elgammal, but posts and videos are made by a team and his site has a merchandise store “in development.” He is an Egyptian-American Muslim who resides in the United States. Oldest recipe posted 11 December 2023; most recent recipe 17 November 2025. Has a recipessddd for macarona bechemel, baked potatoes and lamb, koshari, and molokhia, Recipes are fairly meat heavy, but includes vegan kofta (as well as beverages and desserts). Likelihood of using: 1/10 (autoplay videos)

Scarf Gal Food: Simona Afifi does not have a separate “about” section, but does sprinkle anecdotes throughout the posts. Diaspora Egyptian with actual experience making and buying food in Egypt, posting from the united states. Oldest recipe posted 21 April 2015; most recent recipe 13 December 2021. Has a recipe for macarona bechamel, saneyet batates, koshari, and molukhia. Likelihood of using: 6/10 (most likely this recipe for easy ful starting with canned beans)

The Egyptian Kitchen: abissada was 1st generation born outside Egypt and lists her location as France, but she has visited Egypt. Earliest recipe posted 18 January 2010; most recent recipe . Has recipes for macarona bil bechemel, koshari, and molokhia (first posted recipe). Likelihood of using: 3/10

Food of Egypt: References christian and Islamic holidays. Oldest recipe posted 28 July 2010; most recent recipe 1 August 2013 (posted to facebook through August 2015). Has a recipe for molokheya. Likelihood of using: 2/10 (too many intrusive ads)

Cleobuttera: Tasbih is a food blogger in Egypt who specializes in pastry and baking. Oldest recipe posted 11 November 2014; most recent recipe 25 August 2019. Best web design, includes a section of which major publications have referenced her blog. Likelihood of using: 7/10 (would be higher if I were more of a baker/confectioner)

JulienJulia: Julia is a cooking nom de plume for Kariman Al Essawy, a home cook in Egypt. Oldest recipe posted 22 April 2010; most recent recipe 26 June 2017. Includes restaurant reviews. Has recipes for bechamel lasagna, koshari and molokhia. Also includes this write up of cookbook author Nazeera Nicola. Likelihood of using: 5/10

One bowl potato soup

I wasn’t sure if it would be possible to make just one bowl of potato soup, but I figured I would try.

The bowl of soup with some bacon crumbles and cheese on top

I used my 1 quart pot so that I’d not have room to add too much.

Starting by dicing half a large onion, I put it in the pot with some bacon fat and turned the burner to medium to start sweating the onion. I washed and diced two smallish medium potatoes and added them to the pot as well (and turned the heat a little higher).

I mixed two cloves of garlic and threw those in as well, but I didn’t want either celery or carrots. I have carrots, but I didn’t feel like it

Once the vegetables were pretty evenly translucent and a bit softer, I added two teaspoons of flour. Then I thoroughly stirred that into everything and let it cling evenly to the vegetables and get cooked until it was no longer raw flour.

Then I added just enough soy milk to cover. (Last time I was ordering groceries, I wanted a little dairy but the smallest quantity was a half gallon and the soy milk was cheaper than the cow milk. The main thing I look for in a plant milk is that it has no sweetener and no vanilla flavoring. If I want sweet milk, I can always add sugar, but there’s no taking it out when I want savory (which is most of the time).

I added a bunch of seasonings – salt, black pepper, gochugaru, paprika, powdered thyme, and some mushroom powder. Because that was what was on hand. Because my paprika is losing its color so I want to use it up.

The soy milk thickened faster than I was expecting, so I added a little more. I’m not sure if that’s because of how much flour I added or if it is party of the qualities of soy milk and how it behaves. But I made sure I kept cooking long enough for the potatoes to be cooked through.

Then I topped it with cheddar cheese and bacon crumbles.

It’s was very rich, but definitely tasty. As long as I still have an abundance of ‘milk’, I might make this again. It was a very satisfactory dinner

Mushrooms and Radish in a soy butter glaze

These mushrooms have been 99 cents lately, and I’ve been buying them for mille feuille nabe but I haven’t felt like making that this week, and I wanted to make sure I used them before they went bad.

And I had half a diakon radish left in my refrigerator and had not bought more, but I signed up for a delivery of mystery vegetable seconds and there three (smaller) radishes in that package. So it was time to use this one up, too.

The Yummy Vegan had a dish that used both. I mean, it mostly seems to average out radishes by OkonomiKitchen and mushrooms from The Woks of Life and then makes it vegan. And more importantly uses only one pan for them both!

I liked the concept, but switched the order. So I started off cooking the seafood mushrooms in a little bit of real butter. And at the same time, I quartered and thickly sliced the rest of the radish and put it in a glass bowl (with a vented lid) with some sake and mushroom powder for two minutes. It still wasn’t quite soft at two minutes, so I stirred everything around and microwaved the radishes for another minute.

Meanwhile I cooked the mushrooms until they were very brown and then removed them to a plate. Then I melted another 2 Tablespoons of real butter and put the radishes in to shallow fry.

I made the sauce by using the amount of miso I had left in the jar, which was only about a tablespoon. And I also only added one teaspoon of soy sauce because adding salt to salt, especially since I use salted butter, sounded like a lot. So to get the liquid amount right. I used more like a quarter cup of mirin and no sugar. And the recipe said you might need to add water, but I had some clementines in the counter, so I added the juice of one. And then much careful stirring to fully dissolve the miso without splashing the liquids.

Once the radish was nicely and evenly browned, I added the mushrooms back in and poured the sauce over both of them together.

Finished with some sliced scallions on top.

The result was very good! And, yes, I ate it with a toasted philly muffin, with cream cheese and sliced cucumber, instead of rice. They went very well together.

n-layer dip for dinner

It’s hard cooking alone to go through an entire can of refried beans in one sitting, and I happened to have about 2/3 of a can left.

So the bottom later on this plate is about half a can of refried beans (yes, your math is correct, there will be more beans in my near future). I microwave it for about a minute. Then when I was stirring the beans, I also mixed in some fresh diced serrano pepper. And then it got microwaved for another 30 seconds.

The beans got topped with a layer of salsa (chipotle-flavor generic salsa from Aldi’s that I thought would be comparable to Giant’s, but it was not as good)

Above that – I had peeled and diced (slightly smaller than a centimeter dice) a small sweet potato. That was sauteed in oil for a few minutes, and then I added a diced half onion (white in this case, but whatever color). Near the end when I was pretty sure all the potato was cooked through and was just adding color, I added two minced cloves of garlic and Penzeys Southwest seasoning. Once the garlic was cooked and the potatoes had some brown edges, it became the third layer for the dip.

Then I minced some scallion greens and some parsley to top the sweet potato layer.

I finely diced (because I didn’t want to wash the shredder) some sharp cheddar cheese. Once that was on top, I popped the dip back in the microwave for another 40 second to get the cheese a little melty and the layers playing together.

I had a container of beet & cabbage shred in the refrigerator, and that was a good choice for the next layer.

So the seventh later was shredded lettuce. And then I had some strained yogurt that was more over to the side than an actual layer.

And I ate it with a fork and some tortilla chips.

Stuffed Shells

One of the more pedestrian comfort foods. I was making this for a friend, and realized that even though this is not a dish I make frequently (maybe once every 8 years or so), I have strong opinions about it.

My strong opinion: Why so little flavor?

So let’s start with the filling.

Let’s start with the eggs in the filling. I never notice them, they don’t seem to provide much structural support, and they make your cooking/reheating slightly more complex than just – assemble and heat until hot enough you’d be happy serving it. So I don’t use them. Your mileage may vary.

But you should totally have other things in there. Other green (but not watery) things! For a pint of ricotta, there should be at least 2 scallions – sliced thinly all the way up including the green parts (but not any dried tips, let’s be real). There should be a huge amount of parsley (a fluffy pile of minced leaves that looks to be about the same volume as half your amount of ricotta). You have a mix of dried italian herbs? Throw a bunch of that in the filling. You have fresh basil? Mince and throw in maybe as much as a fluffy pile of 1/4 the volume of your container (I don’t know – it depends how flavorful your plant is – go by what smells good to you). Mix that together. Taste. Add salt. Maybe add pepper. Mix again.

Some people add spinach or chard to the recipe. Either have a delicate hand with the fresh leaves, OR cook the leaves first, press very dry, cut up finely, fluff with your hands, and stir in thoroughly making sure you don’t have clumps.

So now you have your filling.

Let’s fix the pasta – take any old box of dried pasta shells. Boil the water, pick out just the intact shells to throw in (a few more than you’ll actually need because a couple usually tear while cooking), and cook for the package directions. Most dried pasta has a range of times depending on how firm you want it, but jumbo shells boxes usually just have the time for ‘pretty darn firm’ because they know you aren’t eating them straight away – people only make them for stuffed shells. And then once they are cooked and drained, rinse them in cold water (so they stay firm – and in this case getting the surface starch off will benefit you by having them less likely to stick together and tear)

Now you get your casserole and your sauce. I just use jarred sauce. You can have your own sauce opinions.

Spoon a little bit of the sauce into the empty casserole dish and spread around.

Grab a shell, stuff it with the ricotta (you get to balance your ricotta/shell ratio based on your preferences and relative amounts of materials), and lay them out in a single layer on the pan. Again, you get to choose how orderly your layout might be.

Once you have all the shells in the casserole dish that you want to have (this works best if you have chosen a dish sized to have the shells fit fairly firmly together inside, but still all in a single layer). And pour more sauce over it. Because I am not a fan of crunchy pasta (I know people who are, so not judging), I make sure to spread the sauce to get all of the pasta surfaces at least a bit wet and red even if they aren’t buried fully in the pasta sauce.

If you have it on hand and are feeling the gooey cheese, sprinkle mozzarella on top.

(If you have a casserole dish with a lid, you can totally freeze this right now)

Bake at any temperature (250F-375F) until the dish is as hot as is aesthetically pleasing to you. I go until the cheese on top is bubbling and maybe browning in a couple spots. (If frozen, make sure it’s warm throughout before caring about the condition of the topping – that might mean thawing ahead or not using the highest heat you possibly can)

Serve and eat. Enjoy!