Hummus

My dear Hubby is back from Israel and has got loads of Mediterranean Spices & nuts for me. So you are gonna see loads of Mediterranean recipes coming up soon. Whenever we visit any middle eastern restaurant, Hummus served with pita bread is common appetizer.

So what exactly is this HUMMUS???

Hummus is creamy garlicy dip made from cooked mashed chickpeas/ garbanzo/ kabuli chana. Its blended with olive oil, garlic, salt & tahini (sesame seeds paste). To make tahini paste at home just roast some sesame seeds on stove top till they turn light brown & start popping. Once cool, blend sesame seeds in food processor while adding spoon by spoon sesame oil till u get smooth paste. Tahini is very important ingredient of Hummus.

'Hummus Kasa', the earliest documented recipe for something similar to modern hummus (although without garlic, and with additional spices and nuts), dates to 13th Century (CE) Egypt.

Ingredients:

• ½ cup chickpeas
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp tahini
• Salt to taste
• water

Method ;

• Soak the chickpeas in water for 6 hours making sure that they are covered with water. Chickpeas will double in size and will be smooth as opposed to dry wrinkled presoaked nuts. So you will have 1 cup of soaked chickpeas.
• Cook the chickpeas with water in Cooker till they are soft. Cool and drain off the liquid. Keep the liquid aside
• In a food processor, add cooked chickpeas, garlic, salt, lemon juice, tahini and some drained water. Blend till smooth.
• Once the mixture is smooth, start adding olive oil, spoon by spoon to get creamy consistency, Traditionally ½ cup to 1 cup olive oil is used to make hummus. but to make it low cal, I have used less olive oil
• Served it with greek kalamata black olives( you rightly guessed it,, these were also brought by hubby from Israel and I must say, I haven’t ever tasted such awesome olives before.) 
• 
• Ideally it’s served with Pita bread. But pita bread isn’t easily available in India, so I made Zahtar Bread to go with Hummus..
• We also had leftover humus with bread as sandwich as breakfast next day. Just substituted butter for hummus.. it sure did add twist to regular sandwich.