Our Heritage Day Lunch: Fatteh

August 06, 2018

Happy Heritage Day, everyone!

Ala and I have mixed heritage and so we decided to celebrate that today with different dishes. Ala is a full-bred Palestinian from Jerusalem, and I am half Palestinian, half German (more like a Polish-Russian combo that ended up in Germany). For lunch today we made a Palestinian classic called Fatteh. Here's the recipe if you'd like to try it:

• 1 lb of chicken breast (we use leftover roasted chicken)For the Fatteh:
• I tub (750 ml) of plain yogurt
• Pita bread of your choices, shredded into medium-sized pieces
• 2 cups long grain brown rice (or any rice of your choice)
• Nuts of your choice (we use pine nuts and almonds)
• 1 lemon
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 tsp Olive Oil
• 2 tsp Sumac spice
• 1 tsp mixed spices (a combo of cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground clove, ginger powder, and garlic powder)
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1 tsp ground turmeric spice
• 1 cup of chicken, beef or veggie stock of your choice
• 2.5 cups of water*
• Salt & pepper

Directions:

• In a mixing bowl, cut up or shred the chicken and season with Sumac spice, mix well until evenly covered. In a medium sauce pan, heat up 1 tsp of olive oil and saute the chicken until you get to your desired readiness.
• While the chicken is getting ready, crisp up the pita bread slices in the oven at 300 degrees for 5-10 minutes. Once it's reached your desired crispiness, take out and allow to cool on the kitchen table until your ready to serve it.
• In a mixing bowl, combine the plain yogurt with the zest of 1 lemon and 2 cloves of garlic. I prefer to use a garlic presser to keep the garlic pieces very small. Mix well and refrigerate until it's time to serve.
• Now, it's time to cook the rice. It depends what kind of rice you use so cook the rice of your choice the same way you always do. When the rice is ready and while hot and slightly damp, add the mixed spices, turmeric powder and raisins and mix well.
• In a medium sauce pan, heat up the remaining 1 tsp of olive oil and lightly toast the nuts of your choice until golden brown. Set aside to cool.
• In a large serving dish - something that has some depth to it - add the pita bread shreds and evenly distribute over the entire dish. The second layer will be the rice (same as above). Then add 1/4 cup of broth at a time to moisten the rice and pita. It shouldn't be too damp or too dry, so use your judgement. The third layer will be a layer of chicken. Lastly, you add a layer of the lemon-garlic yogurt and top it with remaining chicken and toasted nuts.

When we feel like we need a whole week of this in our lunches, we prepare each layer and keep it in containers in the fridge. In the evening, we set up our lunch containers with the layers. Easy!

We hope you'll give it a try.

Enjoy :)

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