Let's Hummus

I have been interested in making my own hummus for some time. I have also been making my own hummus for some time, but it always kind of sucks. There aren't many ingredients: chickpeas, tahini (ground sesame seeds), lemon juice, olive oil, and perhaps garlic and cumin for seasoning. How do I keep getting it wrong? Well, I don't know and this has caused a lot of sleepless nights at Chez Saw. I think the balance of all of these ingredients is what's key as well as their freshness. Apparently, we may not even have the right chickpeas available to us in the USA. Boo. Decent tahini at a decent price may also be out of reach. We've got lemons, garlic, and cumin coming out of our rear ends though. Anyway, I wanted to write this up officially so as to document the process and some of the things I have learned along the way.

1st thing I learned: follow a recipe from an Israeli chef laid out in detail via npr.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/10/06/446249184/for-israeli-born-chef-hummus-and-tehina-are-a-bridge-to-home

The night before you'll want to take some dry chickpeas and soak them in a bowl. Yes. This is complicated so pay attention.

Make sure to rinse the chickpeas before you finally let them soak. This will remove any industrial gunk and dirt remaining on these beans.

When you awake the next day, the chickpeas will have properly soaked and grown in size!

It's time to cook these bad boys. Put them in a shallow pan and fill with *NEW* water (the soaking water should be removed as it contains gas-inducing chemicals). And you'll want to add about a tablespoon of baking soda to the pot.

Dissolve the baking soda in water first before adding it to more water. Use a whisk (french style shown below). Don't fret if this is too complicated.

Begin to boil. You'll notice foam will develop on top. We want to remove this.

Use a small fine mesh strainer to quickly scoop it out.

This is where it gets tricky. You want to cook it enough for the husks to breakdown, but not too much as they become too mushy. About 15-20 mins is about right. Then remove from water (keep cooking water) and let chickpeas cool. They'll look like this.

Ice them down for faster chilling.

Then go through the arduous task of removing the husk from as many chickpeas as you can before you ultimately give up. Removing the husks is crucial in getting that ultra smooth texture.

This is what the mess look like after peeling and more cooking. It's a mess. You want to heavily drain these chickpeas so your hummus doesn't get watered down.

Ok. I forgot to take pictures of making the tahina sauce, but I followed the directions from the above recipe. At this point, with the tahina sauce made and the mostly-peeled chickpeas, the mixture becomes super-easy to blend, but I did not use my ninja blender. I don't think it does as good of a job as the food processor.

Now for something different.Take some rosemary and black pepper and some olive oil. Add them to a large bowl.

In the bowl add a bunch of pita wedges. Toss the pita wedges in the rosemary, pepper, oil mixture and then arrange on a cookie sheet. Bake for about 15 minutes at 375 F.

With your homemade pita chips and hummus, serve with chopped up cucumber and tomato, parsley, and add paprika and oilve oil. Pine nuts are expensive as sin ($16/lb) but are a wonderful treat to give you that next level fun time.

tWhat's the verdict? In some ways, this is the best hummus I have ever made, however, while the consistency of this hummus is good, the flavor is too bland. The chef said Greek style uses tons more garlic and lemon and I think that is exactly what is missing. I'll have to try again soon.