Mom writes…
So, I have knitting group tonight, and just made up some hummus to take. One of the flavors turned out so good that I thought I’d share it with you!
So, basically I followed Bittman’s Hummus recipe in HCE pg. 93.
I like to make my chickpeas/garbanzo beans this way: soak a one pound bag overnight in salted water. (Read somewhere recently that salted water will soften the skin on beans as some of the sodium will replace calcium or something else, and that helps. Whatever). OK, so then I put them in the pressure cooker with fresh water, teaspoon of salt, water just barely over the top of the beans. Bring to pressure and cook 18 minutes, then let cool down on its own. You could do this in the morning and let it sit on the stove during the day until you get home. If you don’t open it, they’ll stay ’til evening with no concerns at all. This will make about 6 cups of beams, enough for 3 recipes–which is why I got to try different flavors. You can make just one big batch, but I really like having different flavors.
OK, so Bittman puts everything in food processor and lets it blend:
- 2 cups beans (drained)
- 1/2 cup tahini (sesame paste)
- 1/4 cup olive oil, 2 cloves garlic
- juice of one lemon, salt & pepper
- 1 Tbsp cumin or paprika
- parsley garnish
Very tasty
I used less tahini (1/3 cup) since I didn’t have enough for 3 batches at 1/2 cup each, 1 Tbsp chopped garlic instead of cloves, 1 tsp salt, and extra Tbsp of lemon juice since my lemons weren’t very juicy, and a little very fine lemon zest, and some fresh toasted & ground cumin.
Awesomely tasty
As above, without the cumin. Add 1/4 tsp chipotle powder, 1/2 tsp dulce paprika (Spanish), about 8 pieces of sun dried tomato (the jar I had had pieces that were halves of tomatoes, but they were small tomatoes – I used 8 pieces), and some extra liquid. Blend. Adjust salt. AWESOME! The chipotle powder really adds a lovely smoky depth to this flavor.
Really tasty
As above, without the cumin. Add a couple tablespoons of the ‘rooster’ chili/garlic sauce. I had some home made sweet/hot pepper sauce that I added some of too, but I don’t think it made much difference. Add some bean liquid if you like. Adjust salt if needed. Garnish with a tiny dollop of the chili garlic sauce to make it pretty!
Each of these makes about 3 cups or a little more, depending on how much extra bean water you add. Flavors are better a couple hours after they’re made, but are good even immediately if you don’t have time. I love the sun dried tomato/chipotle/paprika one the best. It’s what inspired me to send this to you, and thought that the pressure cooker directions might be helpful – but you can just buy canned chickpeas, too, and make this up super quick. Canned chickpeas are probably a good pantry item to have. Tahini is less likely to be found in your pantry.
David’s note on flavors
We’ve also had great success with this hummus recipe. However, when we use paprika, we typically leave out the lemon. This is because once when we made smoked paprika hummus, it was merely “ok”, and I ascribed that to a flavor clash between the lemon and the smoked paprika.
