Day 39: Hummus: Chick Pea and Tahini Dip and Spread

Hummus is, according to Wikipedia, an "Arab food dip or spread made from cooked, mashed chickpeas, belended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic.  It is popular throughout the Middle East and in Middle Eastern cuisine around the globe."  We know that in the past twenty years, hummus has become more popular in North America, and is now an almost common household word.  We are able to find hummus in the grocery stores, at delis and at specialty stores.  And, you may see that each time the name of this spread/dip is spelled differently -- everything from hummus, hummous, hommos, and humos.  None of these should be confused with humus, which is the organic matter in soil.

Along with the variety of spellings comes a variety of flavours.  Most store bought brands of hummus are a basic chickpea dip with a topping of different things like olives, artichokes, sun-dried tomatoes, hot peppers, etc., that you can mix into the container to reach a different kind of hummus.  If you make your own hummus at home, you could always add in these flavours, and others.  Today, we are going to show the basic preparation of hummus, and then we will list some of the "add-ins" that you can use.

If you are concerned with having the right recipe for hummus, The Globe and Mail Food section offered a local Toronto chef's version that we found to be very simple and light.  It takes three to five minutes with a food processor, or ten minutes by hand mashing.  We have also used a plunge blender or a regular blender to make this.  Both of those will work just fine, but it depends on the texture that you are trying to achieve.  With the food processor, it is easier to get the smooth, silky texture that we would find in the store-bought versions.  Although if you continue to use the pulse button, you will be able to keep some of the chunkiness that signifies the hummus is homemade.  The two blenders will more likely give you the chunky texture.

While I like the smooth and creamy version, husband always prefers his a little chunky.  We usually end up making one batch into two -- we take half of the mix out of the food processor while it is still chunky, and then process the rest of it until creamy.  This way, I can also add a little more garlic to my half, and husband can add a little Frank's Redhot to his half.  Yummy for both of us!

To make enough dip for 6-10 people, you will need the following ingredients:

Chick peas - one 19 ounce can
2 cloves garlic, cleaned
4 TBSP tahini (optional)
1/3 cup olive oil
3-4 TBSP lemon juice
1 tsp. salt

Put everything in the food processor and blend until it is the desired consistency.

Actually, we do break this into a couple of steps.  We puree most of the chick peas with the garlic, tahini and salt.  Then, we add the olive oil.  Last, we add the lemon juice.  This way, we can get to the consistency we want, and adjust the flavour with the lemon -- sometimes it takes even more lemon than what the recipe states.  We also adjust the salt.  Then, we add in the rest of the chick peas and puree to get that chunky texture that husband likes so much. 

Most of the ingredient amounts are negotiable and done to taste.  Even the tahini is completely optional.  But, this is a basic recipe that will take your own special touch to make it your own.  Some recipes will call for cumin or lemon zest or even black pepper. You can add any of these, all of them, or none of them -- it really is your choice.

So, this will take you three minutes, maybe five if you have a hard time opening the can of chickpeas.  I think the clean-up is actually a longer process than making the dip.  Either way, put the hummus in the refrigerator until you are ready to serve it.  It should be at room temperature for serving.  We garnished our hummus with paprika and chopped parsley salad.  You could garnish with anything, and if you are using any of the added ingredients (olives, peppers, etc.), then you would garnish using those ingredients.

To serve this, you can use it as a dip with vegetables or pita bread, or even crackers.  Or, you can use it as a spread on sandwiches, as a filling for celery sticks -- really, you can put this with almost anything.  When our nephew was younger and carried his lunch to school, he would regularly ask for a hummus sandwich which consisted of two slices of bread, hummus, sliced olives and a little lettuce.  To this day, it is a comfort food for him.

We hope that you find the recipe that you like and can make easily to suit your needs.  We would like to talk about one variation here, that may not be mentioned elsewhere.  We made some hummus before Clean Monday, which was the beginning of Great Lent.  We were trying to figure out what was the best way to make this without oil, especially since olive oil is one of the main ingredients.  We found that if we used the liquid from the can of chick peas in place of the oil, the flavour was still bang-on and the texture was very good.  We would do that again, for sure.  The liquid with the chickpeas is a little salty, so we omitted the additional salt.  We did, however, find that we needed a little more lemon juice to overcome some of the salt.  The tartness of the lemon cleaned up the saltiness and gave a nice punch to the taste of the hummus.  So, if you are making this for an oil-free day, you now have a really good option.

St. John Chrysostomos on Repentence

"Enter into the Church and wash away your sins for this is a hospital for sinners and not a court of law. Do not be ashamed again to enter the Church; be ashamed when you sin but not when you repent."