Many recipes you read online come with moving origin stories, telling the reader how the writer learned a secret recipe from their long-lost great grandmother or something like that. This recipe doesn’t. The story is quite simple. Like many people growing up in Israel (and other parts of the Middle East) I just loved hummus. Moving to Australia at quite a young age, I was shocked how bad the stuff called hummus was in the supermarket. Not only did it taste awful, it also tasted nothing like what I knew to be hummus. If you placed this stuff in front of me a few years earlier and asked me what it was I probably wouldn’t have been to tell. So I spent years trying different recipes and finding all sorts of tips until I managed to make the kind of hummus I like. And now you can too!
Hummus:
The recipe is for five 400g cans of chickpeas (I use Edgell as they use smaller chickpeas which are better). I have found it works best with five cans, though you can do it with less, or with dried chickpeas (that’ll require soaking and cooking longer, so I’m cutting corners).
Rinse the chickpeas well.
Place them in a large saucepan with plenty of water and add three tablespoons of bicarb soda.
Bring to the boil and simmer removing the starch (there’ll be lots of it so make sure it doesn’t boil over as it makes a mess and is hard to clean).
Once chickpeas are so soft you can easily squish them with your fingers, take off the boil and drain in a colander.
In a good food processor put two-three cloves of garlic and three-four teaspoons of salt.
Put the chickpeas in the food processor and begin processing. You don’t turn off the food processor until the whole process is done. You can use a wooden spoon to help blend it.
Once the chickpeas are processed into a paste add the juice of two or 2 and a 1/2 lemons (if they’re small) and about half or more of a 500g tub of raw tahini (get good stuff if you can, not the usual crap they make in Australia. My supermarket sells Israeli tahini which is awesome). How much tahini is a matter for debate and depends on your preferences. I like a lot so I use the entire tub.
Once that’s processed in, start slowly adding cold water (has to be cold!!!). I use about 1 cup but it’s about the consistency you like. Don’t make it too runny.
Then leave it to keep processing for another 5-6 minutes. That ensures a nice smooth hummus.
When the hummus is done it will be a bit hot, which means it will form a kind of crusty layer on the top. What I do is put it all in the fridge for a little while and then when it has cooled down stir with a spoon it to get rid of the crusty layer. The whole thing is best served room temperature.
The hummus goes well with tahini sauce. I put tahini in the middle of the hummus (make a dip in the middle of the hummus).
Tahina sauce:
Raw tahini – about 1/3-1/2 of a 500g tub
Salt to taste
Lemon juice – one lemon
Crushed garlic – 2 cloves
Parsley
Water
It’s hard to say how much water. The key is to get a consistency that’s not too runny or hard, like a sauce.
I also like to put hardboiled eggs on hummus (eggs and hummus taste remarkably good together!), as well as lots of olive oil and a sauce made with lemon juice (1 lemon), a good splash of white wine vinegar, chopped parsley and one-two cloves of crushed garlic.
Your life will never be the same!
Anitra Nelson | Apr 24 2020
Yes, this is a great comment on the lack of quality and use-value that evolves from production for trade (capitalism) and the appropriate activist response — do it (y)ourselves — pre-figurative of post-capitalist activities where hummus will keep us happy!