Singapore’s immigrant history and mish-mash of cultures have enabled our food scene to be truly a “melting pot” of dishes. Some of the dishes have even evolved into truly uniquely Singaporean dishes (think: Hainanese chicken rice) over the years. It is thus not surprising to find similar dishes just across the Causeway or right next door in Indonesia (think: satay). But imagine my surprise to find ”roti prata” in Egypt!
Described by some people as the “Egyptian pancake”, the fiteer is actually made with many layers of filo dough and butter. Watching the chef skillfully twirl and ‘whack’ the dough into its desired shape and texture is delightful in itself. Once the chef is ready with the dough, each one is stretched to its desired size and baked in a huge oven much like how pizzas are cooked. The dough is cooked until it turns a crisp brown on the outside, while retaining its ’flaky’ and chewy interior.
While they are tasty enough to be eaten on its own (plain fiteer will be served with honey and/or icing sugar), you do have the choice of either savoury or sweet fillings to be added into them. For the savoury fillings, it ranges from sausages to cheese to peppers to tomatoes or a mixture of these ingredients (or go for the “works” – i.e. every possible filling in the menu!). For the sweet fillings, it includes powdered sugar, nuts, grated dried coconut, honey or a mixture of them. Interestingly, I noted that the plain ones are also sold in an XXL size (about 1.5 times bigger than your typical family pizza)! At the point of blogging, I have yet to verify if this is merely a huge fiteer or made of a different type of dough.
I managed to try a savoury fiteer and a sweet fiteer fresh from the hot oven. The tomatoes, green peppers, cheese and onions-filled fiteer was baked to crispy perfection and certainly reflected the good skill of the Egyptian chef. Somehow, I felt that the dough actually tasted better eaten on its own than our local roti prata kosong. However, there was really nothing to shout about in terms of taste with my chosen combination of ’goodies’ inside. The vegetables and cheese gave a good crunchy bite and it was certainly tasty but not out of the world.
On the other hand, the sweet fiteer of nuts, grated coconut and raisins was quite a revelation. This concoction combined well and was not cloyingly sweet, so you can eat most of it without feeling too jelat. The dough was again well-baked and topped with a dash of icing sugar on top of the pastry. My only complaint? I wish that I had a cup of teh tarik or teh halia to wash all that down!
Yummy?: **** (out of five stars)
Despite not sitting so well with me, the many different type of ingredients that could possibly go into the savoury fiteer could mean that there are some nice combo waiting to be discovered. The all-important dough was generally already very good and this made an important difference to the fiteer.
Also, while there certainly are many varieties of roti prata in Singapore, I felt that most are either run-of-the-mill stuff (e.g. canned pineapples and sliced canned button mushrooms), or unimaginative (e.g. only one single filling). In fact, the overall standard of roti pratas back home seemed to have dropped. While the murtabak is certainly a close contender for something tasty and savoury akin to the fiteer, I have yet to eat a truly good murtabak in Singapore for a long while!
The fiteer – Egypt’s answer to Singapore’s roti prata?
