one of my major food goals recently has been to learn to make really smooth, creamy hummus. i have experimented with a number of recipes and methods over the past year and the secret always eluded me. being lebanese, i felt it was my cultural duty to be able to make really awesome hummus. i picked my grandma's brain and she had no idea how to make it any creamier than hers was (which is yummy but just not that smooth). what was i doing wrong?
the other day, at beth f.'s house, i got my hands on may bsisu's the arab table. (coincidentally, she lives in cincinnati.) finally, the secrets revealed! first, she recommends using dried chickpeas rather than canned. well, i am just too lazy for that and anyway i had like 6 cans of them at my house that i needed to use up. if you are using canned, she says you need to boil them for a couple minutes. and either way, dried or canned, you have to remove the skins. this is key.
this was my eureka moment. i have never boiled the chickpeas or removed the skins. i could not find my grandma's recipe so i consulted a few of mark bittman's and came up with this version, which i feel comfortable calling my own since i made so many changes to bittman's:
liz's super smooth, creamy, lemony, garlicky, awesome hummus!
2 15 oz. cans of chickpeas
juice of 3-4 lemons (depending on size)
6 cloves of garlic
1/2 c. tahini
1-2 T. sesame oil
1 T. olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
boil a pot of water. drain chickpeas, reserving the juice, then rinse them. boil the chickpeas for 2 min. drain, rinse, then remove all skins. this will take a while and be really annoying but it's not hard.
put all ingredients into a food processor and blend. add some of the canned chickpea juice or some more olive oil if it is too dry. blend blend blend until it is super smooth and creamy. for best results, leave overnight in the fridge before eating so that the flavors have time to come together.
to serve, spread it over a plate and drizzle with a little oil (olive or chili). then sprinkle a little paprika on the top. serve with pita or veggies and (if you can find them) those hot pink pickled turnips.
i ate my hummus last night spread all over a pita with some store bought rotisserie chicken and pickles. this was awesome and delicious. hummus is also really yummy with hard boiled eggs. actually i'm having a hard time thinking of anything that does not taste good with hummus.
9 comments:
I've been on this same quest! Sabra is the best brand of hummus for the creamy factor but it's so expensive! My friend said the same thing about removing the skins but it seemed like soo much work! But hey - you said it works - so I'll do it!
Yum! I had the same problem when making homemade hummus - just not as smooth as I wanted it to be. I'm going to try removing the skins and see how it goes. Thanks for the tip!
glad i could help guys! it is a pain in the ass, but it's totally worth it.
Removing the skins is kind of fun. Kind of relaxing. Also fun to pop them at the cats. :)
Yay, a project. I think you should post your recipe for guacamole too. I realize it's very amateur but I suck at making pretty much all food so I would appreciate it.
That is almost exactly my hummus recipe. Only I am too lazy to remove the skins so it is not so creamy. But I only have so many hours to live, you know?
I love hummus and could happily eat it at every meal if someone would toast the pita for me all the time. (I am extremely lazy about food and would rather eat a handful of granola than turn on my toaster.)
Have you ever tried roasted chickpeas? I have a can in my pantry now that I intend to roast soon.
A shortcut for removing skins: place chick peas in a bowl of water and rub(not too hard)them against the bottom of the bowl. As the skins come off they will float to the top. You will still need to inspect them as some of the skins will stay in place.
Hey, pretty impressive! I did google search for smoothy hummus and your blog came up in top page results. And I live in Cincinnati! What in the world! Well, on my quest, I found that using a blender and starting with tahini and lemon mixture is the trick - no peeling beans required. Excellent results too. I cannot imagine anyone would make a regular habit of making hummus if they had to peel.
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