When I take my chickpeas out of the oven in the morning, I bring a few bowls to the guests staying in my rooms. It’s nice for people to taste what our island has to offer. Revithada usually goes into the wood-fired oven on Saturday night, so it’s ready by Sunday. It’s the all-day Sunday meal; it’s eaten after church around 10 in the morning, then people go about their day and eat it again when they return home in the evening.

These days, you wouldn’t fire up a wood oven just for one pot, so many locals bring their clay pots to me, and I put them all in my oven. My mother used to seal the lid with a piece of dough – although not to keep the moisture in, as some might think. An old man at a café once told me a story that explained why. Back then, people would take their clay pots to the bakery, where the baker would place 50 to 60 pots in his oven. When the food was done, he’d open them and take a bit from everyone’s stew to make his own meal. That’s why he never put his own pot in. After that, he said, everyone started sealing their pots with dough, so the baker couldn’t open them and steal from them.

When there’s leftover revithada, you can mix the chickpeas with rice; it’s delicious. In the old days, people added other legumes, too, whatever they had: black-eyed peas, white beans…

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 200°C (390°F).

Rinse and drain the soaked chickpeas.

Place them in a Dutch oven or clay pot (tsikali) with all the other ingredients.

Add enough water to cover the chickpeas by about 5 cm (or 2 inches).

Cover with the lid and bake for 1 hour.

Lower the oven temperature to 100°C (210°F) and cook for another 9-10 hours.

Tip: It’s best to begin cooking this dish the night before so that it’s ready the next day.

Originally published in Gastronomos magazine.