Fattit al hommus | Chickpeas in yogurt sauce

Third week of the month means time for a themed post. When Middle Eastern food became the choice, I was kind of clueless as I wonder if I can do something completely vegetarian other than dips and Falafals. With all sort of confusions I gave a rescue call to my sister who lives in Middle East to know about their food culture and that sort.

After hunting for a week I decided to settle on a breakfast item , to keep it simple and much doable . But the big question was what to cook ? Approached a local middle eastern eatery guy to show me some choice for a breakfast item that is completely vegetarian and the result was bamm... he gave me a pathetic look.

Lost almost a weeks time in the hunt but then good thing was some real good books in the local library helped me a lot to understand the food culture over there.Finally settled on a simple Syrian Breakfast item 'Fattit al hommus' translating to chickpeas in yogurt sauce. This resembled like Indian street food aka chat items.

The first attempt on this recipe helped me in understanding the flavors.The second attempt came real good but since that happened at the evening I couldn't capture. Now I made this for the third time to capture and I'm sure this has found it's place in our breakfast menu. Quite simple, if you have some pita bread and some chickpeas in hand then assembling takes hardly 10 minutes to create this healthy and hearty breakfast. This can serve the purpose of quick after school snack or just like that to munch.

To me it was like an intelligent usage of leftover breads and other staples to create an instant breakfast without much to do actually. The flavors from garlic and mint very really doing a fair job when combined with yogurt/laban . The little bit of ghee or butter goes a long way here to add its own taste and flavor to the dish.

Serves 2

Ingredients

Chickpeas/ Channa / Garbanzo beans ...................................... 1 cup, dried, you can use canned one too.
garlic....................................................................................... 4 cloves, crushed and finely chopped
Dried Mint ............................................................................. 1 tbsp
Butter /Ghee.............................................................................1 tbsp
Salt ....................................................................................... to taste
paprika .................................................................................to taste
Pita breads ........................................................................... 2
Labneh .............................................................3/4 cup  

Method for Labneh

• Heat 6 cups of milk in  a pan until boiling.
• Cool it until you can dip your finger and count 1 to 10.
• Add 3  tbsp of plain yogurt and mix well.
• Cover and keep in a warm place for 8 hrs without peeking or disturbing.
• Line a cheese cloth over a strainer and strain the yogurt for 4 hrs in a refrigerator.
• Labneh is ready now.

Method for Fattit al hommus

• Wash and soak the chickpeas overnight, drain and add enough water and pressure cook to 4 whistles. Alternatively you can cook in a heavy bottom pan with enough water until tender. reserve. After this step you can refrigerate the cooked chick peas for a week .
• Toast the pita breads and keep it ready.
• Heat butter / ghee and add garlic and cook until golden brown and reserve garlic and the cooked butter separately.
• Mix this garlic with labneh and salt.
• Place the Pita bread in a deep bowl with a rim and add in the chickpeas with little bit of cooking liquid.
• Add the garlic yogurt sauce and sprinkle some dried mint and paprika.
• Drizzle the butter in which the garlic was cooked .
• Serve immediately.

Note

• You can tear the pita into pieces and use them too.
• If you are using canned beans , drain and wash thoroughly before use.
• Optionally you can add some toasted pine nuts on the top too.

Disclaimer:

This blog post is a part of the monthly "Cooking With Friends" themed blog post challenge.This challenge was started by a bunch of virtual friends united by their love for food , with the aim of  presenting a different theme related challenge each month.If you want to follow our theme of this month , feel free to attach your link in the comments section below and we will be glad to look into yours. Meanwhile check out what others have shared for this theme.


Anjana from At The Corner of Happy and Harried ,Dolphia from The Story Of Cooks,Jyothi from Curry Trail and Meena from Elephant and the Coconut Trees.


Here is a recap of what I've shared earlier here.

Asian Mushrooms in coconut curry

Chamomile tea infused Rice Pudding

No bake berry cheese cake

Crunchy Panko Crused Roasted Asparagus

Strawberry Rose Duo Kulfi

Jil Jil Jigarthanda

Falafal with Roasted RedPepper Thahini