Lebanese-ish chicken fatteh
Today's inspiration comes all the way from Lebanon, a country I'm unlikely ever to visit, but if I did I would probably like what I was served. The flavours in this dish suited my taste buds perfectly. Because of that, I changed very few things from the original recipe. Sure, I could have followed it religiously, but that wouldn't be me. What made me veer off this time?
There was meant to be squares of toasted pita bread in the dish, actually in it, not on the side. I love pita bread, but have a thing about it getting soggy. Although it was toasted, unless it was eaten really fast, the sog-risk was great and I wasn't willing to ruin a potentially lovely dish when I could spot the risk from a mile away. There was also the fact of an unnecessarily high carb count due to the bread in question. Why not swap it for roasted carrot sticks, seasoned to compliment the general flavours of the dish? Why not indeed? Turned out to be a stroke of genius, if I may say so myself.
Finally I reduced the amount of yogurt sauce. If I had been able to keep a straight face, I would have said that it was due to not wanting the chicken swimming, but I'm not a very good liar. The truth is that I wasn't sure how much 30 oz of yogurt was. This imperial measuring business is really hard for a metric girl. Cups are ok, oz are not. It may just as well be Oz, where the wizard lives and I'm not Dorothy. I don't even own a pair of ruby shoes. Due to the lack of sparkly footwear, I used a random amount of Greek yogurt instead of the stated amount and it worked out fine, but there was a lot less liquid in my bowl than the one in the recipe photo.
Other than that, I did as I was told. The chicken fatteh was nice. Not spectacular by any means, but perfectly nice and full of flavour. This was one of those meals that I'd happily cook again and have for lunch or perhaps on a spread with other dishes for dinner. Yes, in that context it would be good enough to serve dinner guests, but perhaps not as a single meal in a bowl if the guests are of the posh kind.
To make it you need:
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
(1 large pita bread, toasted with olive oil, salt and pepper and cut into pieces)
or two large carrots, cut into chunky sticks
olive oil for cooking
1/4 cup pine nuts
600 g chicken fillets
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp coriander + extra for the carrots
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp paprika + extra for the carrots
salt & pepper
parsley to decorate
Sauce:
olive oil
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
salt
30 oz plain yogurt, or however much you fancy
(I used 250 ml Greek yogurt)
1. Get the ingredients out.
2. Heat the oven to 200 degrees and prepare the carrot sticks with a little olive oil, salt, pepper, coriander and paprika. Bake in the oven for approximately 25 minutes, until cooked.
3. Cook the chicken fillets in a frying pan. Season
with salt, pepper, garlic powder, thyme and paprika.
4. Flip the chicken over and cook on the other side.
5. Add a little water if the fillets are at risk of burning. Cook until done.
6. When the chicken is cooked, attack it with forks and shred it.
7. Toast the pine nuts in a little oil. Shuffle every so often to prevent burning.
Don't take your eyes off the pan. Trust me on this one.
8. Dump the drained and rinsed chickpeas into a large bowl. Add the toasted pine nuts.
I took the eyes off the toasting pan.
9. Add the shredded chicken and chopped carrots sticks to the bowl. Mix well.
10. In a small saucepan, fry off the garlic and salt.
11. Add the yogurt and cook for 5 minutes without allowing it to boil.
12. Dish up and add sauce to the serving bowl or plate, not to the main bowl.
Sprinkle with parsley, fresh if you have any. I didn't.
The leftovers keep well in the fridge overnight, but keep the sauce separate from the chicken.
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