This week's Food Tuesday focuses on a food item that is friendly to all. Vegetarians, Vegans, peanut allergy people, the lactose intolerant, people who can't have gluten, everybody.
It is the delicious combination of chickpeas, sesame, lemon, garlic and oil that we call Hummus. Hummus is delicious, and easy to make, and should not be intimidating. All you need are the right ingredients, a food processor, and a little know-how.
And a love of Hummus.
While it seems that you can buy hummus in any grocery store, it is often of such inferior quality that it simply is not worth the money. Many friends of mine are under the impression that they do not like hummus simply because of one bad experience with a store-bought version.
Good hummus should have smooth, well-pronounced flavors of lemon and garlic, without being overpowering. It should have a substantial texture, and possibly most importantly, it should taste fresh.
Here are the absolutely necessary ingredients:
Dried chickpeas
Sesame tahini
FRESH garlic
Lemon
Plain oil (canola, safflower, vegetable, etc.)
Extra Virgin olive oil
Cumin
Cayenne pepper
Salt
For the slightly more adventurous, those wishing to make several flavors of hummus, you will also want some or all of the following:
Sun dried tomatoes
Kalamata olives
Roasted red peppers and feta cheese crumbles
More lemon and garlic
Anything else you want to experiement with
You can buy the chickpeas that are already reconstituted, but they are wildly more expensive. Bulk dried chickpeas are something like $1.60/lb at the Whole Foods in Omaha.
So, to get started, you want to turn your dried chickpeas into reconstituted chickpeas. Soak them in cold water over night, and then boil for about 2 hours (this is the msot difficult step). Each "batch" of hummus requires about 2 cups of reconstituted chickpeas, which is about 1 and 1/3 cup dried. When I make hummus, however, i dont measure in advance. I just buy a bunch and make hummus out of all of it. Or make chickpea soup. But thats a different Tuesday. :)
Now, the Tahini. For those unaware, Tahini is just sesame paste (Sesame:Tahini::Peanut:Peanut Butter). You can buy any kind of plain (not flavored) tahini you wish, but fresher is better, so if you can get your hands on fresh ground tahini, all the better. I know that most Whole Foods and Wild Oats carry fresh tahini.
To make plain hummus, which will be the base for all of your flavors, but also excellent in its own right, take 2 cups of chickpeas, 2 or 3 cloves of garlic (depending on size; 2 big ones, 3 smaller ones), and the juice of half of a lemon and quickly pulse them in a food processor, 4 or 5 times. Then add 1/3 cup of tahini, a slightly mounded teaspoon of cumin, and just a dash or two of cayenne pepper.
Before mixing any more, prepare 1 cup of oil, 7/8 plain oil, 1/8 olive oil. Then, while mixing in all the ingredients, slowly pour the oil in through the top of the food processor. The important thing here is to only mix enough and add enough oil to make a paste. This will usually require nearly, but not quite all, of the oil (an approximation, of course).
You dont want to process your hummus too much, because you will need to process it again when you add flavors. So, only mix it enough to make it come together. The very last step will be to blend it to the consistency you wish to eat (the second to last is to salt it).
Either after or adding flavors (or now, if you are not making flavors), salt to taste, or add a little more oil or cumin or lemon if necessary. Then blend to a desired texture. Then, eat on toasted pita, or on triscuits, or with a spoon, or however else you wish.
This is hummus in a nutshell. It is very simple and very easy, and well worth it. Fresh hummus tastes at least 3 times as good as store bought. To make different flavors, simply chop up your favorite ingredient, add it to some hummus, and mix it in the food processor.
Using kalamata olives will turn your hummus a deep purple color, and lend quite a lot of saltiness (which is why you dont add salt to taste until the very end). Sun dried tomatoes make an excellent hummus, as do a mix of roasted red peppers and feta cheese. Also, if you happen to have smoked paprika, a small dash of that goes a great way to adding a smoky, roasted flavor to a red pepper and feta hummus. You can also just add more lemon juice and several more garlic cloves for a very strong hummus, if that sounds appealing.
With any additional ingredients, you will most likely end up needing more than you think you will, but always start small and then add; its easy to add more, hard to take blended ingredients out. Experiment with different ingredients, and have fun with it!