This week has been very quiet on the cooking/blogging front, in a large part because I’ve been sick. But now I’m well again, and once again up to thinking about food, writing about food, and cooking and eating food. I promise there will soon be a glut of posts.
Also, we have a new look. What do you think?
Tonight I made fatteh, which I’ve been wanting to make ever since I first had it, and planning to make since just before I got sick. I discovered fatteh at our local Lebanese restaurant early this summer, and was wowed by it. There are a number of variations – chicken, vegetable, etc – but at its heart the dish is chickpeas and pita bread with a yogurt sauce. I took my inspiration from the recipe at Morsels & Musings, but added eggplant because I liked it a lot in the dish I had, and really good eggplant dishes are a rare breed. The eggplant almost dissolves in this dish, and if you start with good fresh eggplant it ends up very sweet and good. Would it convert an eggplant-hater? I don’t know, but I’m generally indifferent or negative to eggplant and I loved it here.
If you left out the eggplant (or prepared it ahead of time), this would be an incredibly quick dish to make, but prepping the eggplant takes a little time. I’m not sure I’ve ever cooked with eggplant before, so in case you haven’t either, I’ll share what I’ve learned. It’s a good idea to salt your eggplant before you cook it; this helps to get rid of any bitterness, though young, fresh eggplant tend not to be bitter. (Eggplant are in season right now, and a great thing to buy at your local farmer’s market.) I salted mine, and it came out nice and sweet, so I’m not sure if the salting helped. What to do: just slice the eggplant, sprinkle salt over the slices, and let them sit for half an hour. Then rinse off the salt and cook the slices however you want. When I baked mine, I thought they had dried out too much, but there was just a paper-thin layer of dried flesh where it was exposed to the heat; underneath it was meltingly soft and moist.
I’m not quite sure about the balance of this recipe. It was very tasty, and the flavors were rich and melded well, but what I remember of my restaurant meal involved more of everything. But since there can’t be more of everything, I’m guessing there was more yogurt and eggplant, and a little less chickpea, than what I wound up with. My memory could be playing tricks on me, though. Sounds like a good excuse to visit the restaurant again and compare notes!
The balance of the cold yogurt sauce and the warm chickpeas and toasted bread makes this a great summer meal.
Eggplant Fatteh (two servings)
- One can chickpeas
- One small-medium eggplant
- 3/4 c yogurt (ideally Greek yogurt, which is much thicker than normal yogurt)
- 1/2 T tahini
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 1 tsp lemon juice
- 1-2 pieces of pita bread
- Slice the eggplant into 1/2 inch thick rounds. Salt and let sit for half an hour, then bake at 425 for 15 minutes, or until the top browns. Then flip and continue baking until the other side is brown.
- While the eggplant cooks, drain the chickpeas well, then heat them up. I simmered them in a pot of stock for a few minutes, then drained them.
- Stir together the yogurt, tahini, garlic, and lemon juice to make the sauce.
- Lightly toast the pita bread, then cut or break into pieces.
- When the eggplant is done, layer it in a bowl with the chickpeas. Surround it with pieces of pita bread, then top with the sauce. If you like, garnish with chives or other herbs.
- Enjoy!