Egyptian home cook
Yasmin’s story
Yasmin, originally from Egypt, now lives in Newcastle, where cooking and baking are her passions. She feels particularly honoured to bring Egyptian cuisine up here for everyone to taste and enjoy, with her outstanding event catering and her cooking classes, teaching all her lovely customers how to cook Egyptian meals for themselves and their families, taking great pleasure from being able to share all her tips and tricks
Yasmin prides herself in always considering the relationship between what we eat and our health, whilst still producing authentic food, including her own hummus, Za'atar Rolls (distinctly flavoured with classic Middle Eastern herbs), spinach fatayer (a common alternative to a meat pie, sometimes thought of as an Arab empanada), falafel and all the traditional Egyptian food you could think of. However, Yasmin’s signature dish is koshary, a traditional authentic street food, this Egyptian staple is thought of as the country’s national dish. It is made up of layers of Rice, Brown Lentils, Macaroni Pasta and Chickpeas topped with Crispy Onions and her very own special tomato sauce - this delicious vegan dish is good for anyone looking to try something different.
During lockdown, she studied at the renowned London Le Cordon Bleu institute a course called Creative Vegetable. The experience of being in a professional kitchen was ‘truly a highlight’ of her culinary journey, with the course itself promoting an innovative approach to cooking, teaching how to use and reimagine the use of vegetables in different dishes, such as using different parts of vegetables (flower buds, leaves, tubers, roots, bulbs, grains), employing unusual vegetables and edible plants and flowers and preparing varied vegetarian recipes. Yasmin now proudly combines the tricks she learnt on the course with her authentic family recipes, in order to bring a taste of Egypt to your event. Indeed, amongst the various world cuisines available through Hey! Food is Ready, a significant amount of Egyptian cuisine is vegetarian, due to both the historically high price of meat and the requirements of the Christian community, whose religious restrictions require essentially vegan diets for much of the year.