Stuffed Flatbread · Butcher-Stall Classic

Hawawshi (حواوشي)

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It takes its name from Ahmed al-Hawawshi, a Cairo butcher credited with creating it in the early 1970s — unusual for a street food to have a named inventor.

Hawawshi is Egyptian flatbread split and packed with spiced minced meat, onion, garlic, chili and herbs, then baked or grilled until the bread turns crackling-crisp and the filling cooks inside it. A fixture of Cairo butcher shops and street stalls, sliced into wedges and eaten hot by hand.

Why it's made this way: It grew out of Cairo's butcher-shop culture, where vendors used their own fresh ground meat to fill and bake flatbread to order, turning a butcher's side hustle into a nationwide street-food staple.