Hummus (home made)- Some for now and some for later

The most difficult part of this blog was trying to work out how to spell Hummus. Wikipedia has alternate spelling as follows- hamos, hommos, hommus, homos, houmous, hummos, hummous, or humus^.

The fourth one gave me a bit of a laugh.

The Arabic name of the prepared spread is حمّص بطحينة (ḥimmaṣ bi ṭaḥīna) which means chickpeas with tahini (Do I have to acknowledge wikipedia when I plagiarize?)

(This picture is from lebanese recipes.com)

In the recipe below I started with dried chickpeas. You can used tinned ones, if you really must, and it will shorten the whole process to about 45mins. 

Prep time- 24hours (if using dried chickpeas)
Cooking time- 1.5-2hrs
Processing time- 15mins



Ingredients

1.5 cups of dried chickpeas or 2 x 400g cans
3-4 garlic cloves
2/3 cup lemon juice
1/2 cup tahini
1 tsp salt
Olive oil
Chickpea stock from cooked chickpeas(1 cup max, I didn't use any)

When serving- Olive oil, parsley or mint, a few whole chickpeas & ground cumin

Method

Step 1- Put 1.5 cups of dried chickpeas in 1litre of water for 24 hours. Rinse off and change water every 8 hours. Chickpeas will double in size to 3 cups! (alternate method is to open 2 cans of chickpeas, drain liquid into bowl and rinse well)


Step 2- Rub chickpeas lightly between hands to loosen skins. Boil in a pot for 1-2 hours until you can smoosh the peas between 2 fingers (alternatively rub canned chickpeas between hands and cook for 15mins)


Step 3- During the cooking process sieve the skins off the top of the water. This is a right pain in the butt to do but is worth it for a smoother creamier texture at the end. The skins don't float so you have to catch them as they boil to the top.



Step 4- Put a fresh bowl in the sink and drain chickpeas stock into it via a colander. Pick out more skins and put chickpeas into foodprocessor with 'gladiator training blade' attachment.

Step 5- Add in tahini, garlic, lemon juice, salt & olive oil and process on low for 1minute


Step 6- Taste test and add in what you think it needs more of. Personally I always put in more salt and fine tuning the garlic & lemon juice is all important. At this stage you can add in chickpea stock if you want to thin it out.


Step 7- Process on high for 5 minutes stopping every now & then to check and adjust taste.

That's about it. Keep some for now and freeze the rest for later on. Simply take it out of the freezer the night before and put into fridge or at least 2 hours on the kitchen bench. Reconstitute with olive oil if it has dried out. Do not microwave!

To serve, put on plate and swirl it around. Pour olive oil into swirls and dust with cumin. Place a few cooked chickpeas in the middle of the plate along with parsley or mint.

Serve with lebanese bread or carrots & celery or use as a sauce for a kebab