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Fattet Jaj

This multi-layered dish is complex and time-consuming, and I don’t expect many people to attempt it. But it is very important in the Arab world, especially in Syria and Lebanon. And it is one of those recipes which bring me a flood of memories. I had received a letter from a woman I did not know in Beirut saying that she would like to meet me and that she had recipes for me. It was the late Josephine Salam. On our first meeting—at Claridge’s tearoom, where a band played Noël Coward tunes—she brought me a bottle of orange-blossom water and a copper pan. She volunteered to come to my house and show me how to make fattet jaj. I got the ingredients, and we made so much that we had to call in the neighbors to eat. I saw her for many years after that, and we had many meals together. It was the time of the civil war in Lebanon, and I received through her an ongoing account of everyday life in the ravaged city. Her daughter Rana has become a conceptual artist. For her thesis at the Royal College of Art in London, she asked me to give a lecture on the history of Middle Eastern food. She filled the college with hangings announcing the event, with my portrait painted on by a cinema-poster painter in Egypt. She laid out foods and spices as in a souk, put on a tape of Egyptian street sounds and music, and offered Arab delicacies.

Cooks' Note

If you want to prepare this in advance, assemble the layers in a large ovenproof dish, cover it with foil, and heat it up in the oven before serving.

Recipe information

  • Yield

    serves 8

Ingredients

4 cups thick Greek-style drained yogurt, at room temperature
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 chicken, about 3 1/2 pounds
Juice of 3 lemons
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
5 or 6 small pieces of mastic (page 44), pulverized with a little salt (optional)
Salt and pepper
1 large onion, finely chopped
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 pound lean ground beef
1 cup basmati or long-grain rice (washed if basmati)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
3 very thin pita breads or 2 ordinary pitas
Vegetable oil for frying
1/4–1/3 cup pine nuts

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Pour the yogurt into a bowl and beat in the garlic. Let it come to room temperature.

    Step 2

    Wash the chicken. Put it in a large pot and cover with water. Bring to the boil, and remove any scum. Add the lemon juice and cardamom, mastic if you like, salt, and pepper, and cook until the chicken is very tender and almost falls off the bones—1 to 1 1/2 hours. Lift out the chicken, remove the skin and bones, and return the chicken pieces to the stock. Bring it to the boil again when you are ready to serve.

    Step 3

    In the meantime, make the hashwa or filling: Fry the onion in 3 tablespoons of the oil until it is golden brown, stirring occasionally. Add the ground meat and cook, crushing and stirring it, until it has changed color, then add the rice and continue to stir. Add cinnamon and allspice, salt and pepper, and 1 3/4 cups water. Cover the pan and reduce the heat to a minimum. Cook gently over low heat for about 20 minutes, until the rice is done.

    Step 4

    Open out the pita breads. Toast them in the oven or under the broiler until they are crisp and only lightly browned. Then break them up into pieces in your hands and spread them at the bottom of a deep serving dish.

    Step 5

    Work quickly to assemble the dish when you are ready to serve, so that all the layers, apart from the yogurt, are hot. Cover the toasted bread with the rice-and-meat hashwa. Lay over this the chicken pieces, and pour over enough of the flavorsome stock to soak the bread thoroughly. Cover entirely with the yogurt, and sprinkle the top with the pine nuts lightly fried in a drop of oil.

    Step 6

    Serve at once.

  2. Variation

    Step 7

    Instead of toasting the bread, Josephine cut it into triangles, deep-fried them in oil until crisp and brown, and then drained them on paper towels.

  3. Fatta

    Step 8

    A number of Arab dishes go under the name fatta, which describes the manner of breaking crisp toasted Arab bread into pieces with your hands. They all have in common a bed of toasted bread soaked in a flavorsome stock, and also a topping of yogurt. The fillings in between vary. The most common is with chickpeas (page 333); another is with eggplants (page 314). A special favorite is with chicken, meat, and rice. They are considered family food and are not usually offered to guests, but if you go by the delight with which they are described, they are more popular than party dishes.

Cover of Claudia Roden's The New Book of Middle Easter Food, featuring a blue filigree bowl filled with Meyer lemons and sprigs of mint.
Reprinted with permission from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, copyright © 2000 by Claudia Roden, published by Knopf. Buy the full book on Amazon or Bookshop.
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