North Africa · Street food
Hawawshi (Spiced Minced Meat-Stuffed Baked Bread)
Crisp, tallow-brushed baladi bread pockets stuffed with raw spiced beef and lamb, baked until succulent and intensely fragrant.
The story
Invented in the early 1970s by Cairo butcher Ahmed Al-Hawawshi, this dish evolved rapidly from a Souq Al-Tawfiqiyya market innovation into Egypt's quintessential street snack. Cairo workers and late-night strollers queue at specialist stalls to devour these parcels straight from blazing deck ovens with pickled turnips. The defining technique requires stuffing raw, high-fat spiced mince directly into uncooked or pocketed baladi bread so the rendering tallow steams and fries the dough simultaneously.
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