Hummus Recipe

I'd never eaten hummus when I started working at this vegan kitchen. I tried their hummus, and nearly threw up... knowing nothing about it, I assumed hummus was horrible and decided I wouldn't eat it again.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself at a little middle-eastern establishment for lunch, and there was a hummus plate complimentary with my food. Much to my suprise, the hummus was awesome (with some warmed pita bread, olive oil, and paprika). It wasn't until much later in my culinary experience that I learned why the hummus we made at work was so horrible: we used whole garbanzo beans and, rather than cooking them off and removing the husks, we ground the whole bean (husk and all) and used that in the recipe. I guess this is a bad thing...

Sugar,

It's very easy.

Take a can of chick peas (garbanzo beans). Drain and rinse with fresh water to remove some of the flavour of the can!

Remove any loose husks - good point, Orglif.

Place chick peas in a food processor with 1 or 2 cloves of garlic and about 1/2 cup of Tahini (paste made from sesame seeds). You can buy this in most UK supermarkets and Middle Eastern 'ethnic' food shops.

I like to add the juice of 1/2 lemon, salt, pepper and a little paprika/cayenne pepper. You could also add ground cumin, fresh coriander etc. to taste.

Blitz it until it's well ground, adding olive oil the mix until you reach the consistency you want (probably about 1 cup). For a lower-fat version, you can add more lemon juice and/or water instead of some (but not all) of the oil, which will change the flavour and texture, but is still a good dip/sandwich filler.

If you keep home made hummus, it always seems to get stiffer and less runny in the fridge, so calculate this into your preparation.

Serve sprinkled with a little olive oil and paprika/cayenne.

It's a very versatile method, which you can use on other beans, adding or subtracting the flavouring ingredients, e.g. a little red onion.

A Lebanese woman told me that the original dish has NO garlic, but I'm so used to the taste with it (which all the 'bought' varieties have) that I always use some. Just make sure it's fresh and don't overdo it until you know how strong you like it....otherwise you'll walk around with your very own exclusion zone!

I'm so happy to have a recipe! I actually bought the chickpeas already and I was going to wing it. I've had a hard time finding the tahini even though our grocery store is huge. I can get all kinds of Brazilian soda and 10 different brands of rice flour, but no tahini. Trying not to resort to mail-order.

Sugar,

I've used sesame oil before as a substitute for Tahini, but it's not the same (especially if its a toasted oil).

I'm sure you can find tahini somewhere in Boston - though it may not be in you local store, I guess!