Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Creamy Chumus

I'm made hummus before, but it didn't turn out the way I like it: it was good, but didn't have the creaminess of the Israeli chumus that I like so much. My older brother emailed me a recipe for the creamy kind and, while a bit labor-intensive, turned out just how I wanted it.

Prepare:
-Over night, soak 1 cup of dried chickpeas in 4 cups of water and 1tsp baking powder (use a large pot)
-Ready 1/3 cup tahini, 1/2 cup lemon juice (I used the juice of 1 lemon and 1 lime), 3 minced cloves of garlic, 1 tsp coarse salt, 2 tbsp olive oil
-Get out your food processor

Cook:
-Drain water from soaked chickpeas, fill pot back up with 4 cups water and 1/2tsp baking powder - bring to a boil and simmer for about 40 minutes (skimming off some foam from the top), until each chickpea is consistently yellow all the way through (ie they're edible)-Drain (but save water) and cool water and chickpeas down to room temperature and then stick in the freezer for about 30 min (or fridge for 2hrs) until well chilled-Process chickpeas with lemon juice and salt until even and creamy. It should be thick but not too thick. Add 1 or 2 tbsp of the cooking water to thin it out a bit-Add garlic and tahini and process completely
-While processor is still running, drizzle olive oil into it
-Taste and decide how to adjust (add more tahini, lemon juice, salt, garlic, etc)

Tips:
-Well, this turned out how I wanted it. It was a bit plain and so next time I'll go for a garlickier item, or perhaps make it spicy
-Originally, the recipe called for 1/4 cup lemon juice and I added 1/2 by accident and it turned out perfect. Normally I don't like things too sour, too, and I was fine with it
-The recipe called for 1/2 cup tahini but even with 1/3 cup the tahini taste was still quite noticable
-In the recipe, they mention in the stage between lemon juice and tahini to spread chickpeas on a "fine mesh sieve" to get out the peels. I tried with a paper-towel and (obviously) couldn't get anything out, so I just skipped that step and it turned out fine
-My processor was a bit too small for all the stuff, so I separated everything in two and mixed it with half the ingredients, then mixed the stuff back together

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've read you can replace tahini for peanutbutter in hummus, have you ever tried this?

hgjhg said...

Hmm.. no, I haven't. I'll give it a go next time I make this and don't have any tahini.
I wonder if it would work for nutella as well...

Anonymous said...

Let me know how it works out, I just started making my own hummus and haven't been adventurous to use the PB.