12-05-2025
How to Make Leftovers Feel Like a Feast
When Salam Dakkak was growing up in Jordan, dinner didn't end when the plates were cleared. It simply transformed.
Her mother would take whatever remained — a spinach stew, a lentil soup, even sautéed vegetables — and tear up old bread, reheat the dish, pour it on top and finish it all with a cool yogurt sauce and some fried nuts. 'It wasn't just leftovers,' Ms. Dakkak said. 'It was a brand-new meal.'
Recipe: Eggplant Fatteh
That meal had a name: fatteh.
Long before appearing on restaurant menus or Instagram feeds, fatteh, from the Arabic verb fatta (to break or tear), was a tradition across Arab households, a generous layered dish that breathes new life into food.
Today, Ms. Dakkak, 62, the chef-owner of Bait Maryam in Dubai, serves fatteh at her Levantine restaurant in the classic chickpea-and-yogurt style and in countless other interpretations — some she even helped pioneer. Msakhan, the Palestinian dish of roast chicken with sumac and onions, was, according to her, first served as fatteh in her restaurant.
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