Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Chicken Fatteh: Recipe

A couple of months ago, I had a great dish at the Lebanese Taberna in Silver Spring MD. Both my wife and I loved it (It was back when she was eating dairy and grains).  Finally got off my butt, and went looking for recipes, and found a great one on Chowhound. http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/270971  (that recipe is below)

Picture from Christy's Food Rush
I also found a recipe on a couple of blogger's websites, including this one.  Her pictures are great (as you can see), but I'm using the recipe for Chowhound, because it has more exact numbers on how much stuff to buy.  
For chicken and broth:
1 chicken, whole or quartered
1/2 lemon, cut into quarters
1 Tb ground cinnamon
1 tb salt
2 cups water
1 onion with 3 cloves stuck in it
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 stick cinnamon
2 bay leaves
1 large can chickpeas
 In large dutch oven or stockpot, put chicken lemon quarters, ground cinnamon, and salt. Add water, onion with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon stick and bay leaves. Simmer until chicken is tender. Remove chicken and let cool. strain and skim broth, pour over chickpeas and cook for 15-20 minutes.
To put the dish together:
1 quart plain yogurt (i use labneh or the thick greek yogurt, they work best)
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 cup mints leaves, torn
1 cup pine nuts
3 Tb butter
2 pita breads cut into 1 inch squares
1/2 a pomegranate (if available)

Mix yogurt with garlic and let sit for 15 minutes. Fry pine nuts in 1 tb butter until brown. Set aside.
Fry pita cubes in remaining butter until crisp.
Skin and bone chicken meat. leave in largish chunks.
Put chicken in bottom of serving dish. pour warm broth with chickpeas over it. spoon yogurt mixture on top, and then sprinkle on the pine nuts, pita, mint, and pomegranate. serve in shallow soup bowls. 

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