Danish vs Egyptian food & cuisine

Denmark

SEASONINGS

Danish cooking is fat-forward. Butter and cream are the base ingredients. The other major flavor source is preservation: smoked fish, cured meats, pickled vegetables — these carry most of the interesting flavor in traditional Danish food.

Danish cooking threads sweetness through savory contexts constantly: red cabbage rødkål is braised with sugar and vinegar, pickled herring is sweet-sour; brown sauce gets a small amount of sugar to round it. Remoulade — the yellow condiment you get with fish — is noticeably sweeter than its French cousin.

Dill is the signature herb. If one plant marks Danish food as distinctively itself, this is it. It goes with fish, with potatoes, with cream sauces, and in pickles. Allspice marks Danish savory cooking, it goes into frikadeller, sausages and braises. Nutmeg appears in white sauces, in creamed spinach, and occasionally in meatballs alongside the allspice. Caraway goes in rye bread and certain cheeses. White pepper gets used in traditional recipes more than black, which is a specific northern European tendency.

No garlic in traditional cooking. Onion does the allium work — fried onions, caramelized onions, raw rings on smørrebrød. Garlic is now normal in contemporary Danish kitchens, but it has no deep traditional roots. No heat whatsoever. No chili tradition, no peppercorn dishes, nothing that builds warmth through capsaicin. The only heat in traditional Danish cooking is the vague warmth of allspice and white pepper. No complex layering of spices. Danish cooking uses one or two spices per dish, added simply, without the idea that spice complexity is a virtue.

Danish mustard is strong and grainy; it functions as both a condiment and a flavoring. It goes with herring, with pork, as a base note in dressings and sauces. It provides the closest thing to real sharpness.

The Christmas spices — cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger — constitute almost a separate parallel pantry that activates in December and disappears again. Brunkager, pebernødder, æbleskiver batter, gløgg — this is when Denmark actually uses a complex palette. Cardamom in a weekday Danish dish would read as wrong, but in Christmas pastry, it’s essential.

SAUCES

Danish sauces moisturize dishes and enrich them mildly. Almost all of them are dairy-based, thickened with starch.

BRUN SOVS – brown sauce made from pan drippings, thickened with flour, sometimes with a pinch of sugar to round it out. Goes on meatballs, roast pork, almost any hot dish that needs something on it.

PERSILLESOVS – béchamel with parsley chopped in. Butter, flour, milk, parsley, the sauce for stegt flæsk — the dish Danes voted their national dish.

FLØDESOVS – is a cream sauce, used with chicken, game, mushrooms. Sometimes just reduced cream.

SENNEPSSOVS — mustard sauce — pairs specifically with poached cod. Cream or butter base with mustard stirred in. The mustard adds the closest thing to sharpness that Danish sauces typically get.

REMOULADE – is the most distinctively Danish sauce. It’s yellow from turmeric, sweeter, milder, mayonnaise-based, with finely chopped pickled vegetables mixed through: capers, pickled cucumber. The result is tangy-sweet-mild, nothing aggressive. It goes with fish, with hot dogs, with fried fish cakes. Sold in tubes and jars everywhere, consumed in large quantities.

KARRYSOVS – a fascinating example of domesticated foreign flavors. The curry used is very mild, often just turmeric with faint cumin notes,  sold as “Danish curry powder”. The sauce ends up sweet, yellow, creamy, and so mild it barely registers as curry to anyone who knows the original. It appears in curry herring karrysild, in chicken salad, in egg dishes.

Egypt

SEASONINGS

Salt, cumin and coriander have been the main Egyptian seasonings since ancient times. The oldest recorded use of cumin dates back 5000 years when cumin was used in the embalming process due to its antibacterial properties (source). Warm and floral coriander belongs to the same family as cumin and goes hand in hand, supplementing each other in Egyptian dishes to create warmth and depth. Heat-wise, food is not overly spicy, unlike their Western or Southern neighbors, the focus is more on the aromatic side.

The ancient Egyptians are known to have used a lot of garlic and onions in their everyday dishes, and this tradition continues. Fresh and fried garlic, mashed with herbs, is very prominent, and onions, fried and sprinkled on top, are a frequent garnish. A unique Egyptian flavoring ingredient is black honey, also known as sugar cane molasses, a liquid black sweetener used in desserts and marinades.

A famous Egyptian nut and spice mix DUKKAH, meaning ‘pound’ in Arabic, it illustrates how it is made – pounded finely or coarsely. It’s a versatile mix – used to crust meat, fish, sprinkled on bread, or over eggs. The composition varies from family to family, still, the common ingredients are nuts,  sesame, coriander, cumin, salt, and black pepper. Dukkah is gaining popularity in countries outside of Egypt, largely due to its exposure through TV shows.

Other spice mixes used widely in Egypt are shared with other cultures:

Levantine ZA’ATAR – dried oregano, thyme or marjoram, sumac, sesame seeds, salt.

Arabic BAHARAT – black pepper, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, nutmeg, paprika.

North African RAS EL HANOUT can have 30 or more ingredients. Some blends can have up to 80 spices! Here are some common ones: cardamom, clove, cinnamon, coriander, cumin, nutmeg, peppercorn, turmeric, paprika, fenugreek, anise, ginger, chili pepper, allspice, mace, dried rose petals.

SAUCES

Some are local, some have come from elsewhere. These sauces are used with dishes in Egypt:

TA’ALEYA is a garlic sauce made by frying garlic with ghee and then adding coriander and chili. It is used to flavor bamia or koshary.

TEHINA is a sesame paste, garlic, salt, cumin, and lemon juice mix that goes with almost everything.

TOMAYA is a garlic sauce made from mashed garlic, lemon juice, and salt, often served as a condiment with grilled meats, chicken, or seafood. It’s similar to a Mediterranean garlic dip called toum.

BISSARA is a split fava bean sauce or dip, also featuring onions, garlic, lemon juice, hot peppers, parsley, dill, mint.

MOLOKHIA is eaten with bread as a soup or dip, but can be categorized as a sauce.

SHATTA – a hot chili sauce made from crushed red chilies, garlic, lemon, and vinegar. It’s a spicy condiment served with koshary, ful medames, and falafel.