Sifnos Baked Chickpea Pie (Revithopita Sifnou)

Despite the name pita, which usually signals a phyllo-wrapped pie, revithopita from Sifnos is something else entirely: cooked chickpeas, blended or mashed with onion, olive oil, lemon and a little flour, poured into a tin and baked slowly until it sets into a dense, golden, savoury slab, closer in spirit to a firm baked batter than any layered pastry.

It comes from the same island and the same chickpea tradition as Sifnos's famous slow-baked revithada, and the two dishes are genuinely related, both showing how thoroughly this small Cycladic island has built its food culture around a single humble pulse.

This is real vegan comfort food, dense and filling, and it is a good dish to make ahead, since it keeps well and, like many baked pulse dishes, arguably improves after a day resting.

Key preparation steps

1. Cook dried chickpeas until very tender.
2. Blend or mash with onion, olive oil and lemon.
3. Pour into an oiled tin.
4. Bake slowly until set and deeply golden on top.

Cooking the chickpeas

Dried chickpeas, soaked overnight and simmered until genuinely very tender, well past salad-firmness, are what this dish needs, since they need to blend or mash down smoothly. A pinch of bicarbonate of soda in the soaking water helps soften them further and can shorten the cooking time slightly.

Building the batter

Blend or mash the cooked, drained chickpeas with a generous amount of grated onion, olive oil, lemon juice and a little flour to help bind, until you have a thick, coarse batter rather than a completely smooth puree. Season generously, since the whole dish depends on this base being well flavoured.

The slow bake

Pour the batter into a generously oiled tin and bake at a moderate temperature for a genuine hour, until the top has turned deeply golden and the inside has set firm rather than staying loose and wet in the centre. Let it cool for at least fifteen minutes before cutting into slices, since it firms further as it cools.

What matters in this dish