Sunday 28 October 2007

fatteh

I was very happy when I discovered this yummy Syrian breakfast.

I first spotted this dish on the menu of a Lakemba Lebanese restaurant, and it is indeed a dish eaten all over the Levant. My version is an amalgamation of many web recipes, mostly Syrian, that I read over before coming up with my Sunday morning brekkie.

One of the grocery stores across the street stocks a lot of Middle Eastern goods, I suspect the owners are Lebanese, and so it was easy to find what I wanted when I snuck out of the house this morning.

It’s such a gentle, moreish meal, perfect for a late morning or brunch hunger buster. You could even eat it alongside your eggs.

Fatteh
Anna’s very own recipe. Serves 2.
Ingredients:
400g can chickpeas
125g natural yoghurt
1 lemon, juiced
3 tablespoons tahini
1 large clove garlic, crushed
1 round of pita bread
30g pine nuts, dry toasted in a frying pan
½ teaspoon salt
Chopped fresh parsley, to garnish
Sumac or cayenne pepper, to garnish
Olive oil, to garnish
Method:
1. Drain chickpeas and rinse well. Place in a pan with cold water then bring to the boil.
2. Add a little salt then boil for approximately 7 minutes or until chickpeas are tender. Reserve some of the cooking liquor.
3. Heat a frying pan and (without oil) toast pita bread until browned, dry and crispy. Break into shards.
4. In a bowl, whisk yoghurt, tahini, garlic, ½ teaspoon salt and lemon juice until combined. It should have the consistency of runny paint. Add chickpea cooking water if it needs to be thinned.
5. Place pita shards in a serving dish. Cover with warm chickpeas. Pour over yoghurt sauce then decorate with drizzled olive oil, pine nuts, parsley and sumac/cayenne.
Variation: you could also add minced lamb, cooked with a little lemon juice and mixed with fresh, chopped parsley and coriander.


Finished off with fragrant, fresh parsley: this is my contribution to Weekend Herb Blogging, hosted by Estonia's Pille from Nami Nami.

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10 comments:

  1. What a great combination of flavors in this dish. It sounds like something I'd really like. BTW, I had trouble uploading photos recently but within an hour it worked, so I think they are working on it all the time.

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  2. Thank you for your contribution, Anna! I love chickpeas, and fatteh definitely sounds like something worth trying!
    PS regarding the photo - you can send it to me directly, I'll add it to the round-up, if you wish..

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  3. Yogurt and tahini, mixed, sounds wonderful... and the chickpeas! A perfect lunch for me!
    Don't you hate it when the computer magic fails?!?

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  4. Yay, chickpeas! The recipe sounds great even sans photo. And so nice to find another Australian food blogger.

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  5. Yaay, photos! And it really does look delicious!

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  6. Lovely! This looks suspiciously like the most popular dish in the banquets put on at the Moroccan Soup Bar here in Melbourne.

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  7. Hi Anna, just wanted to say that I enjoy your blog but missed this weeks GFM wrap up :-)

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  8. There is one very important step that makes this dish so special... as a child, I was always taught that one should saute the pine nuts in very hot butter (or ghee) and almost immediately splash both the pine nuts and hot butter right onto the yogurt-tahini sauce right before serving... after that, the dish cannot wait! Some green onions and fresh radish on the side are always a welcome accompaniment, adding a wonderful play on temperature and texture!

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  9. Thanks for posting this recipe. I'm living in Beirut, Lebanon, right now, and this is exactly what I had for dinner. :-)

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  10. This sounds amazing! I'm excited to try.

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