Fatteh is a southern Levantine dish consisting of pieces of fresh, toasted, or stale flatbread covered with other ingredients. I had it in a Lebanese restaurant in Cambridge (UK), enjoyed it and looked it up on the internet. Here is my version. I don't think I've got it right yet.
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Ingredients - for 2 people
2 pieces of pitta bread small tin of chickpeas small pot of yoghurt some pine nuts olive oil butter paprika clove of garlic |
Equipment
oven tray saucepan |
oven:
time in oven: a few mins (see description) preparation time: some frying |
As I said, I'm not sure I've got this right yet.
I think the restaurant version I had didn't toast the bread. The paprika doesn't seem to add much to it, and the garlic, rather too much. I feel like experimenting with other spices. The Wikipedia article (which I cribbed the definition from) mentions cumin.
The internet recipe talked of frying the pine nuts in olive oil, and browning some butter to add on top. It seems more efficient to brown the pine nuts in the buter.
Meat is sometimes added. But then, of course, it isn't vegetarian.
The restaurant called it Fattet.
Another attempt...
The pitta bread was old, and so dry (and frozen). I spead some butter on and put in oven. That was OK, but I should have cut it up first, rather than trying to do it while red-hit.
I use some walnut halves, chopped, and fried in butter. (They're cheaper than pine nuts, and easier to use up the rest of the packet.) Then I tipped in the chickpeas as well (as the weather was cold, and I wanted the thing to be warmer). So far, so good. But then I added chopped garlic clove, cumin and fenugreek. The fenugreeek was because I'd bought some by mistake (for ginger) and I'm trying to use it up. It was a mistake. The cumin was OK. The garlic was too strong (only a single clove!) and my husband said he couldn't taste it, so I obviously got the lot.
Put over the cut-up pitta bread. Put yoghurt on top. A bit of paprika because it looks nice.
It was OK. Surprisingly filling!
Another attempt...
I used a big tin of chickpeas (rather than a small one), and cooked it a bit beforehand, then drained it, so stop it being cold.
The rest of the ingredients as at the top (except I forgot the garlic!) But I dealt with them differently. I fried the pinenuts with quite a bit of butter, then added the torn up pitta bread, then the drained chickpeas, then the paprika (which made everything rather pink), then the yoghurt, and mix everything up. I liked this version. But adding the yoghurt to the hot mix liquified it a bit.
© Jo Edkins 2018 -