Lebanese Chickpea Fatteh Recipe
Arabic bread topped with chickpeas, yogurt, and pine nuts.
Equipment
- 1 Individual serving bowls or a glass/ceramic baking dish (approximately 2.8L in size)
- 1 Small pot (to heat up the chickpeas and fry the pine nuts in)
- 1 Medium-sized frying pan (for the crispy bread)
- 1 medium-sized bowl (for the yogurt mixture)
- Spoons (for mixing and serving)
Ingredients
- 28 ounces canned chickpeas
- 4 tbs ghee or oil (for deep frying)
- 2 large rounds Arabic pocket bread (cut into 2-3 cm squares)
- 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
- 2 pounds natural Greek yogurt
- 3 tbs tahini (hulled)
- 4-5 tbs cold water
- salt (to season)
- 1 tbs ghee (extra)
- 1/3 cup pine nuts
Instructions
- Rinse the chickpeas from canning liquid and add them to a pot with 2 cups of water. Boil for approximately 25 minutes or until softened.
- In the meantime, cut and fry the bread in two batches. Heat ½ of the ghee in a frying pan over medium heat. Add ½ of the Arabic bread and fry until golden brown.
- Remove and drain the fried bread on paper towels. Repeat. Place the bread in the serving dish.
- To make the yogurt sauce, add crushed garlic, natural yogurt, tahini, salt, and water into a bowl and mix until smooth.
- To serve individually, layer the crispy bread in a shallow bowl and add drained chickpeas (keep a handful of chickpeas for garnish).
- Next, pour the yogurt mixture over the top and finish off with the extra chickpeas.
- Heat the one extra tablespoon of ghee in a small frying pan, add the pine nuts. Stir until golden in color.
- Drizzle the hot ghee and pine nuts over the yogurt (this will make a TOOSH SOUND — that’s the sound the hot ghee makes when it hits the cold yogurt).
- Garnish with chopped parsley and enjoy! Optional: You can also serve it with a sprinkle of paprika or pomegranate seeds.
Notes
There are no rules when it comes to frying your bread — you can fry the bread with olive oil or butter instead of ghee if you prefer.
You can swap ghee for olive oil when frying the pine nuts.
This recipe feeds up to 8 people. To prepare a smaller portion, half the quantities and use a small serving dish.
Since the quality of tahini can vary depending on the brand, you might need to add more water.
You need to eat this dish straight away so you can get the best out of the crispy bread once it's soaked with the garlicky tahini yogurt sauce.