It's Hummus Time!
Hummus seems to be the one food that I can count on my child eating. My kid is a picky eating, he has his favorites and he sticks to them. Thankfully hummus is a great and easy to make. However, is it okay if I don’t use dry chickpeas, can’t I use can? I feel like I never see dry-I’ll look but I may cheat, just a tad. I’ll keep you updated and let you know what the critic child says!
Ingredients
1 ½ cups dried chickpeas, soaked overnight
2 garlic cloves, peeled
¾ cup tahini paste
½ cup chickpeas cooking liquid (plus more to achieve desired consistency)
½ cup fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
pinch of black pepper
Toppings of your choice (e.g., olives, red pepper flakes, fresh herbs, etc.)
Directions
Adapted from smittenkitchen, Cafe Mogador’s secret recipe and few tips collected over the years
Rinse the soaked chickpeas well and drain them before putting them in a saucepan, with ¼ teaspoon of salt and the baking soda.
Cover them with water, bring to a boil, cover and cook over medium heat about 1 hour or until the chickpeas are very soft. If necessary add more water.
Keep in mind that the baking soda will speed up the cooking process so be careful to check before the chickpeas turn into puree.
Once cooked, drain the chickpeas, reserving the cooking liquid.
Crush the garlic until pureed. Transfer it to bowl of a food processor, add the sesame seed paste and lemon juice and process until white.
Add ½ cup of cooking water, ¼ teaspoon of salt, some black pepper and process until completely smooth.
Add the chickpeas to the sesame paste mixture and process until very smooth. Depending on how you like your hummus you can add further cooking water. Adjust with salt and pepper to your liking.
Serve drizzled with olive oil and, if you want to, feel free to add olives, red pepper flakes or chopped fresh herbs.
Photo, recipe via The Iron You