Fatteh

Three layers built in the dish and never stirred together, so each spoonful goes down through all of them.

Vegetarian, but not vegan — contains dairy (butter), dairy (yoghurt).

Ingredients

the bread

• 3 stale flatbreads, torn
• 3 tablespoons olive oil

the chickpeas

• 400 g cooked chickpeas, kept warm in their liquid
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin

the yoghurt layer

• 600 g thick yoghurt
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed to a paste with salt
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• salt

to finish

• 80 g butter
• 60 g pine nuts
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• a handful of parsley, chopped

Method

1. THREE LAYERS ARE BUILT IN THE DISH AND NEVER STIRRED TOGETHER. Toasted bread on the bottom, warm chickpeas over it, garlicky tahini yoghurt poured over that, and browned butter and pine nuts on top. Four textures and three temperatures in one bowl, and a spoon is taken straight down through all of them rather than round the dish. Stirred into one mixture it becomes a bowl of beige porridge -- all the same ingredients, none of the contrast, and the contrast is the entire dish.
2. THE BREAD GOES IN DRY AND TOASTED, AND THE DISH IS ASSEMBLED AT THE LAST MOMENT. Torn stale flatbread toasted in the oven or fried until hard, laid in the base. From the moment the yoghurt goes on, the bread is softening -- it is meant to be partly crisp and partly soaked, and after ten minutes it is uniformly wet. So everything is prepared and the layers go in as it is carried to the table.
3. THE CHICKPEAS ARE WARM AND SOME OF THEIR LIQUID GOES IN. A few spoonfuls of the cooking water over the bread before the chickpeas. It softens the underside of the bread deliberately while the top stays crisp -- that gradient through the layer is wanted. Cold chickpeas make the whole dish tepid.
4. THE YOGHURT IS LET DOWN WITH TAHINI AND IS NOT HEATED. Two tablespoons of tahini whisked into six hundred grams of yoghurt with garlic. It must be pourable enough to flood the chickpeas, and it is used at room temperature -- warmed, it splits, and there is no egg or flour here to stop it.
5. THE BUTTER IS BROWNED, NOT MELTED. Cooked until the milk solids turn nut-brown and it smells of hazelnuts, with the pine nuts going golden in it. That browning is the top note of the dish and plain melted butter tastes of nothing against the yoghurt.
6. IT IS NOT SEASONED AT THE TABLE. The yoghurt carries all the salt and garlic, and it has to be assertive before it goes on, because once the layers are built nothing can be stirred in.
7. The bread torn and toasted or fried until HARD. Laid in the base of a wide shallow dish.
8. The yoghurt whisked with the garlic paste, tahini and salt until POURABLE. Kept at ROOM temperature.
9. The chickpeas warmed through in their liquid with the cumin.
10. The butter melted and cooked with the pine nuts until the butter is NUT-BROWN and the nuts golden.
11. NOW, QUICKLY: a few spoonfuls of chickpea liquid over the bread.
12. The warm DRAINED chickpeas spread over.
13. The yoghurt poured over to flood them.
14. The browned butter and pine nuts poured over the top, then the paprika and parsley.
15. TESTED: a spoon taken straight down should find crisp bread at the bottom and cool yoghurt above. Uniformly wet means it stood too long.
16. Carried to the table and eaten at once. NOT stirred.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Lebanon · All recipes