Hummus 5/5 (3)

Hummus in Arabic means Chickpeas / Garbanzo beans. It’s a staple dip, spread from Middle Eastern cuisine. They call it as mezze, means accompaniment. It is essentially cooked, mashed Chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice and garlic. Nuttiness from the Tahini, tanginess from the lemon added with pungency from the garlic takes this dish up a notch. In addition, Extra virgin Olive oil and ice cubes cast creaminess to the hummus. If you are a first-time hummus eater, you’ll be intrigued by the flavours packed in it. Once you try this fool-proof recipe, hummus will become your household favourite.

Tahini is a sesame paste used as an indispensable ingredient in many of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dishes. Feel free to check my Tahini recipe. It’s super easy to make and a vegan recipe as well.

This delicious dip is a healthy vegan diet, which can be easily prepared at home with few simple steps. It involves no cooking, if you pre-cook your chickpeas and tahini a day before. Then it’s just grinding the ingredients together. You can also buy canned chickpeas and tahini from store. Then add the rest of the ingredients and blend it together to get an instant hummus. To get a creamier texture, you can re-cook the canned chickpeas with baking soda which helps the peas disintegrate easily.

My thumb rule in cooking is, “Nothing Can Beat Homemade’’. Though it involves a little labour, believe me, it pays. This homemade hummus is bliss and doesn’t pinch your pocket. Even a small portion of hummus is quite expensive in stores. At home with these small hand-full of ingredients and effort you end up getting a huge quantity and great results.

In the authentic way of hummus preparation, after cooking the chickpeas, they peel the skin off before blending it. Here, I pressure-cooked the chickpeas for a few extra whistles than required for other dishes. This resulted in a mushy texture of the chickpeas and most of them de-skinned on their own. It didn’t require extra efforts to peel the skin, just handpicked them and they came off on their own. Rest of the chickpeas, I ground them with the peel. I didn’t find any texture difference. My conclusion on whether to grind the chickpeas with or without skin is, you can grind with skin provided you pressure cook them with surplus whistles, and they are super mushy.

Success of making creamy luscious hummus at home rely on 3 basic techniques-

1) Overcooking the chickpeas with generous whistles in the pressure cooker yields super creamy result.

2) Blend the Tahini and lemon juice first to get a fluffy whipped texture, and then add rest of the ingredients. Running the blender for longer time results in a creamier texture.

3) Adding ice cubes increases the creaminess, releasing the air inside, resulting in a light and fluffy texture.

If you stringently stick to these 3 techniques, you will accomplish your dream of getting a creamy hummus at home…✌✌

If you have leftover chickpeas / channas while cooking your main course or from Indian street food, chaats like Dahi Papdi, Dahi Sev Puri you can overcook them again in a pressure cooker with more whistles. Then turn it into this magical recipe of hummus. Only extra effort would he preparing tahini.

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Wash and soak the chickpeas overnight or minimum 6 hours with surplus water to soak. Pressure cook the soaked chickpeas (white channa) with enough water to immerse in a pressure pan. About 30 whistles will be enough to attain the desired result. Here, I used leftover cooked channa (from Papdi Chaat), so I recooked the channa with 20 whistles along with aquafaba (refer notes).

Meanwhile chop the head and tail of garlic, retain the skin, add few drops of extra virgin Olive oil, chop the coriander, and mix it. Either put it in the air fryer or microwave oven for few minutes till it gets roasted. Alternatively, you can roast it in the pan on a stovetop. After roasting, peel it and keep aside.

Keep the Tahini ready (refer to the recipe if needed). Squeeze lemon juice from a big lemon to obtain ¼ cup.

Once the pressure settles down, release the weight, and open the lid. When you pick a chickpea and smash between your fingers it should be super soft.
If you did not get that result, don’t panic, add more water and pressure cook with more whistles. Once the chickpeas are ready, cool them.

Take Tahini and lemon juice in a blender jar and pulse it for few seconds, then blend it for a minute. Again, for few seconds, this helps to get a creamy, swirly, whipped texture.

Now add roasted garlic, cumin powder, salt, run the blender for few seconds.

Then, add cooked chickpeas (1 ½ cup) with half of the EVOO. Run again for a minute. After, add few ice cubes and remaining EVOO and run the blender again for a minute.

Scrape the bottom and sides of the blender, add the remaining ice cubes, and run again till you get the desired creamy, fluffy texture. Transfer the hummus into an airtight container if you are storing in the refrigerator or to a serving bowl. Relish the super soft, creamy, fluffy hummus with any Arabic bread, pita bread, falafel, or kebabs.

Recipe Card

Preparation time: 5 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Cuisine: International, Middle Eastern

Category: Accompaniment/ Dip

Yields: 1 ½ – 2 cups

Author: Manimala 

Ingredients

Cooked Chickpeas– 1 ½ cups

Tahini (sesame paste)– ⅓ cup

Lemon juice– ¼ cup

Extra virgin Olive oil (EVOO)– 2-3 tbsps

Cumin powder– ½ tsp

Salt– to taste

Garlic cloves– 2

Coriander / Parsley– 1 sprig

Ice cubes– 6

Instructions

1. Wash and soak the chickpeas overnight or minimum 6 hours with surplus water to soak.
2. Pressure cook the soaked chickpeas with enough water to immerse in a pressure pan. About 30 whistles will be enough to attain the desired result.
3. Meanwhile chop the head and tail of garlic, retain the skin, add few drops of extra virgin Olive oil, chop the coriander, and mix it.
4. Put it in the air fryer or microwave oven for few minutes till it gets roasted. Alternatively, you can roast it in the pan on a stovetop. After roasting, peel it and keep aside.
5. Keep the Tahini ready.
6. Squeeze lemon juice from a big lemon to obtain ¼ cup.
7. Once the pressure settles down, release the weight, and open the lid. When you pick a chickpea and smash between your fingers it should be super soft. Once the chickpeas are ready, cool them.
8. Take Tahini and lemon juice in a blender jar and pulse it for few seconds, then blend it for a minute.
9. Now add roasted garlic, cumin powder, salt, run the blender for few seconds.
10. Later add cooked chickpeas (1 ½ cup) with half of the EVOO. Run again for a minute.
11. Now add few ice cubes and remaining EVOO and run the blender again for a minute.
12. Scrape the bottom and sides of the blender, add the remaining ice cubes, and run again till you get the desired creamy, fluffy texture.
13. Transfer the hummus into an airtight container if you are storing in the refrigerator or to a serving bowl.

Notes

• As I mentioned early, if you strictly follow those 3 techniques, you will succeed in getting the result as desired.
• Overcooking the chickpeas will really help you to get the creamy texture.
• Always prepare Tahini a day before if you plan for hummus. It saves time.
• You can replace homemade tahini for store bought, but I’ll not assure the end results. If store bought tahini turns out to be rancid, it’ll affect the taste and texture of hummus.
• You can also keep tahini as optional ingredient and make your hummus. It’ll turn out to be a ground paste of the chickpeas. This hummus will miss out the sharpness and nutty flavours of Tahini.
• Roasting garlic is optional if you can’t handle the strong pungent flavour of garlic. Roasting mellows the pungency of garlic.
• Alternatively, you can tame the pungency of garlic by soaking the minced garlic in lemon juice for few minutes.
• You can add any neutrally flavoured oil in the place of olive oil. To be honest, EVOO and hummus are made for each other, perfectly matched duo. It tastes heaven when you drizzle more oil to your hummus serving.
• Here I added ¼ cup of lemon juice, you can reduce little bit. But I like the tart and extra sharpness from it.
• Ice cubes are essential to obtain the extra creamy texture. It releases the air and resulting in a fluffy hummus. If you don’t have ice cubes, try adding ice water.
• Running the blender for longer time after each addition of ingredient improves the texture. It will take 5–6 minutes for your total running time. It’s worth it.
• In my video I ground it in a small mixer jar, after adding the hummus it was overflowing, so I divided into 2 portions and ground it effectively. Later I mixed the 2 portions thoroughly to get even texture. If you are using big jar for blending, you can manage in single portion itself.
• You can store it in the refrigerator for 3 – 4 days.
• You can blend it in a food processor as well. I used mixer grinder.

Now time for my Kitchen Secrets…😉😍

• If you have leftover chickpeas / channas while cooking your main course or from Indian street food, chaats like Dahi Papdi, Dahi Sev Puri you can overcook them again in a pressure cooker with more whistles. Then turn it into this magical recipe of hummus. Only extra effort would he preparing tahini.
• You can make a lot of variations in hummus by including beetroot, roasted peppers, jalapeño, carrot, honey…I will share my video of the same soon.