I’ve always called this dish “chickpea bake”, although it’s similar to fatteh, which is made in cuisines spanning the Arab and Middle Eastern worlds. Some people make fatteh with lamb and beef instead of chickpeas, some people make it with just chickpeas, some people don’t use any nuts, some people do. Fatteh just means bread soaked in juices and I do the contrary – I don’t soak the bread at all. I keep the flatbread crisp.
I make this dish in a particular way because I’m vegetarian and have been for more than 40 years. In all our dishes, we experiment and tweak to create depths of flavour and to make sure nutrition is satisfied.
For me, this dish is the people’s hero; they have decided that the chickpea bake is the standout dish over and above everything else we serve at Moroccan Soup Bar, my restaurant in Melbourne. People love it. It’s been described as anything from an “orchestra in you
