Homemade Hummus

This recipe is embarrassingly simple. It's also very easily customizable. It's surprising that more people don't make a hummus to match the meal or appetizer they're making. First, the obligatory picture of the ingredients.

Yep. You're going to need a food processor for this one. A blender may work, but it'd be a stretch. First, drain the chickpeas. And don't just do the thing where you take the top off the can and use it to keep the chickpeas in while you pour the liquid down the drain. Take a strainer, put it over a bowl, and pour the chickpeas into that. You'll thank me later.

Now comes the rough part. You need to take the skin of the chickpeas. Throw the chickpeas in another bowl with some water and massage them gently. They will then look like this.

The transparent parts are the skins. They come off fairly easily. Sometimes you'll have to pinch the chickpeas to get the skin off. Chickpeas with their skin will have a dull or matte appearance to them, naked chickpeas will be shiny.

The sheathed chickpea is on the left. If you don't want to do all this, you can buy dried chickpeas, and soak them in water for 24 hours before you cook.

Once you're done, throw them in the food processor, and pulse a few times. Now you're going to want to throw in salt, garlic, tahini (well stirred), lemon juice, olive oil, and parsley. Or roasted garlic, or red peppers, you get the idea.

Keep going until the whole mixture is smooth. The mixture may be too dry, if so, take a little of the reserved liquid from the chickpeas and pour it in until it blends up. Not too much though, lest the hummus become watery. 

You can serve now, or throw it in the fridge and use it whenever you like.

"What?" you say. No high depth-of-field shot of the completed hummus? Stick around next week, when we will see this hummus and homemade falafel in their partially out-of-focus glory.

Homemade Hummus:

1 16 oz can of chickpeas

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 tsp of salt

1/3 of tahini, well stirred (or peanut butter if you don't have tahini)

1 oz lemon juice

2 tsbp olive oil

1 small handful of fresh parsley 

1. Drain the chickpeas and reserve the juice, then take the skins off. Or soak dried chickpeas in water for a day.

2. Pulse the chickpeas in the food processor until coarsely ground.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients, and blend until smooth, adding reserved juice as necessary.

Comments

[Heathe]

This is a good recipe - and I never knew about the whole taking the hulls off thing, but you're supposed to use PREPARED tahini - like how it says on the side of the can. Makes for a better texture as raw tahini is like peanut butter.