Hummus: Additives, Techniques, Recipes

[Corinna Dunne]

However, I haven't had much luck with my food mill.  At first I thought it was broken, but since discovered that I didn't have the handle lodged in properly.  So when I used it the next time, I was feeling confident of a good result. But I found that the chickpeas didn't really go through properly and the skins clogged up the blade.  (The manufacturer is ACEA Passavedura, made in Italy).

So, last night when I made it, I took the skins off by hand, which was a bit labourious as they didin't all float to the top for me.  I had soaked the chickpeas overnight,  they were well cooked, and they had been bought recently, so would not have been dried out.

Any advice on improving my mouli technique would be very welcome.

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Corinna, sorry I saw this so late. With the food mill, you have to keep adding liquid during the process so that the peas that have been mashed pass through more easily, otherwise everything just sits there and clogs up. When using a food mill, I add the liquid ingredients (tahini, lemon juice & water mixture as well as olive oil) bit by bit into the food mill along with the chickpeas. It is a pain in the ass though, still. The bowl of water method works pretty well for me with some vigurous rubbing especially since, unless I'm feeling very kitchen fundamentalist, I just try to take a bunch of skins off even if I don't get every last one of them. In that case I just dump everything into the blender afterwards, so at least that part is easier. It's just a question of which type of work you find more tedious.

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Thanks for the advice Behemoth. I'll give this a go next time.

Chefzadi, I can well imagine that the skins were left in for sustenance, and I do hate wasting food, but there's something really sublime about the "skins off" hummus. I'm interested in your method, mashing the chick peas in the liquid. What do you use to mash them?

[snowangel]

Corinna, I cooked the beans last night using the method advocated by Russ Parsons (if I can find the link, I'll edit this post). Basically, put in a heavy casserole (I used a LeCreuset type), add about 5 cups of water (for 1 pound of beans). Bring to a boil on top of the stove, cover and stick in a 250 degree oven. Check for water level after an hour. I think I left them in the oven for almost 3 hours (quite frankly, I forgot about them). They were beautifully done and the skins just slid right off when I ran my hands through the beans. If I hadn't been planning to whiz them into a puree, they would have been considered overdone. Give this method a try next time!

[nakji]

I made hummus successfully for the first time in my life this week. Previous attempts had resulted in what could only charitably be called chickpea spread. A friend bought me back a litre (!) of tahina from Israel so I could make some "real" hummus. Following his family recipe, I whizzed a tin of canned chickpeas (sacrilege, I know) in the blender with lemon juice, ground pepper, salt, olive oil, and several spoons of tahina. I included the water from the can, and it made an incredibly light, almost fluffy hummus. I did not peel the chickpeas, as I wanted to include the fibre to offset all the fat. Tragically, we have no pita bread, so we've been eating a lot of crudite. What else can you do with hummus?

[Lior]

Use it as a salad dressing over chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. Spread in on bread whenever you make any sort of sandwich-especially an omelette or cheese or cold meat sandwiches.

[nakji]

Use it as a salad dressing over chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and onions.

Sounds great! I have all this in my fridge right now. Any other vegetable combinations it goes well on?

[ChefCrash]

I'm sure you forgot to mention the garlic, right?!

Using canned peas is fine. We use canned pureed chickpeas all the time (Cortas brand). But It's not "real" unless it's made this way:

Regardless of how you get to this stage, start with a chickpea puree.

~7 ounces puree

~1 clove garlic

~1 tsp lemon juice

~1 to 2 T tahini (Alkanater brand)

Salt to taste

Water (chickpea broth, if you boil peas)

NO black pepper, none

NO oil (not yet)

Whizz the above ingredients adding water to get the consistency of very thick pancake batter.

Plate. Create a mote. Fill mote with new olive oil. Sprinkle the edges of the plate with Cayenne pepper. Place a mound of chopped parsley or mint in the center.

[nakji]

That is a stunning plate, just waiting to have some pita wiped through it.

Oh, gosh, I did forget to mention the garlic. I added two cloves, grated first on my Japanese ginger grater. I find that gives the finest possible mince, removing the remotest possibility of happening across a painful chunk of raw garlic.

Fresh mint is an utter, utter impossibility where I live. I miss it.

I used the chickpea broth from the can - it was an Italian brand, and the broth doesn't taste tinny at all.

[Lior]

Za atar leaves and/or dried ground spice is a perfect combo especially with pine nuts. Make a crater in the center, put the zaatar and pine nuts and then olive oil.

Any salad vegies. For Tehina- it goes great with eggplant.

[emmalish]

I always wing it when I make hummus. Usually 2 or 3 garlic cloves (depending on size), a can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, couple tbsp of tahini, and (this is probably sacrilege, but...) some sundried tomatoes. All in the food processor, and I add olive oil to the right consistency and lemon juice and salt to taste. I can eat the entire bowl by myself. Preferably with toasted pita, but sliced baguette is great too.

[llc45]

Martha Stewart has a lower fat roasted garlic hummus that we love. Roasted Garlic Hummus

[BeeZee]

Favorite sandwich - toasted chewy bread (your choice, I often have a bagel) smeared with hummous, topped with sliced avocado, lettuce, tomato. Onions optional. Creamy avocado just blends so nicely with the hummous...

[Pam R]

Tragically, we have no pita bread, so we've been eating a lot of crudite. What else can you do with hummus?

Do you have an oven (or grill/BBQ)? Lots of flat breads can be made at home.

I also love chummus with za'atar added, and you can add all sorts of flavourings. But straight-up classic chummus is my favourite. It's great in a sandwich with grilled chicken and lots of fresh vegetables or skip the chicken and grill the vegetables for a veggie version.

[djyee100]

My apologies in advance to any purists on this thread. I've always liked Linda Carucci's California-style Hummus. It contains soy sauce and Worcestershire sauce, & it's zippier than classic hummus. The recipe is here:

http://www.lckitchen.com/recipes.html#hummus

I like hummus in a whole wheat bread sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and maybe a tiny bit of red onion.

ETA: Some crumbled feta cheese on that hummus sandwich tastes good too. Now I'm starting to feel hungry.

Edited April 19, 2010 by djyee100 (log)

[nickrey]

Out of all the dips I make, the hummous invariably gets the most positive comments.

The recipe is simplicity itself.

Add to a food processor:

1 x 400g can of chick peas (reserve a few for the garnish)

2 tbsp of juice from the can

Juice of 2-3 lemons (depends on juiciness of lemons, use your judgement and adjust it to taste)

2 x garlic gloves, peeled and crushed

Large pinch sea salt (Maldon, Sicilian or similar)

Small pinch cayenne.

Turn on food processor and blitz until it is uniformly smooth with the consistency of thin cream.

Leave processor running and add tahini gradually until the desired thickness is reached. I take it to a thickened cream type consistency.

Serve hummous, garnish with reserved chick peas, sprinkle with Za'tar or paprika, drizzle with olive oil and serve.

This is what mine looks like:

Tips: Not all tahinis are good in hummous, experiment until you find one you like. Equally, not all lemons are good in hummous: try to avoid ones that are bitter.

[ChefCrash]

This looks great Nick. Love the bowl.

[llc45]

I must admit to be lazy as of late because the Sabra with hot pepper flakes is good. But, alas, these pictures have pushed me out of my laziness - gonna have to make a hummus or two this week, maybe my standard and then one of the variations discussed in this thread - they look so good.

[nakji]

I'm making hummus and cucumber sandwiches for lunch tomorrow to use up the rest of my uneaten hummus. My fruit shop had the season's first cucumbers! The promise of a hummus lunch is the only thing keeping me from attacking the remainder with a spoon right now. I'll have to remember to sprinkle a little paprika on for zest - if only I had some feta.

[Darienne]

We have been great devourers hummus eaters since I can remember. I go easy on the garlic...mostly because hummus is often an out-for-lunch in a wrap thingy between appointments or errands. I use tahini but have used peanut butter or almond butter when out of tahini.

Last year a dear and generous eG friend who lives in Ashkelon, Israel (guess who?) sent me some lovely spiced tahini and I have a smidgen left.

One of my favorite things to do with tahini is to mix it: 1:1:1 with melted dark chocolate, icing sugar. Makes a sort of Halvahish ganache. Yum...

[MelissaH]

Tragically, we have no pita bread, so we've been eating a lot of crudite. What else can you do with hummus?

Do you have an oven (or grill/BBQ)? Lots of flat breads can be made at home.

Or on a stovetop with a griddle, for that matter.

MelissaH

[Katie Meadow]

I like this (tweaked, from a recipe by Bittman):

2 cups drained well-cooked or jarred chickpeas, liquid reserved

1/3 to 1/2 c tahini, or to taste

1/4 c xtra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling

2 cloves garlic, peeled, roughly chopped, or to taste

salt to taste

2 tsp ground cumin or to taste

1/2 tsp paprika, more to finish

juice of one lemon, plus more as needed

chopped fresh parsley to garnish

Put everything except the parsley in the processor, adding chickpea liquid or water as needed to produce a smooth paste. Adjust for seasoning, lemon, etc. Serve drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with paprika and some parsley.

I find that the next best thing to cooking your own chickpeas is using Italian jarred ones, rather than canned. To me the canned ones taste tinny, and the liquid is definitely more metallic. If I think the chickpeas tastes tinny, I rinse them and drain them, and I am more inclined to add water as needed instead of the the chickpea broth. The tahini makes a difference, too. The stuff in the can seems often very hard to mix. I now buy it in jars from any large middle-eastern specialty grocery. It doesn't take Atlas to mix it--in fact it is often still well mixed in the jar when I get it, keeps for a long time in the fridge, and does not separate into a hockey puck and a pool of oil.

[emmalish]

I am SO craving hummus right now. I may have to pick up some pita on my way home tonight.

[llc45]

OK - stopped being lazy and made some hummus. Made light dinner of tapas: garlicky sauteed shrimp, sliced cucumbers with feta, and hummus with toasted pitas.

[gus_tatory]

I've also seen non-standard versions of hummus made with other types of beans in addition to or even instead of chick peas. These can also be quite yummy, although I submit that if one goes too far with this it probably leaves the land of "hummus" proper and wanders into a general multi-culti bean dip region. ...

This is hilarious--I just made a delicious hummus with a can of "salad bar bean blend"!

[nakji]

I wonder if you use white beans...is it still hummus? Is it wrong?

[Pam R]

It's not wrong, but it's not hummus. It's white bean dip or spread.