This week, with so many people entertaining and spending time with family and friends, Roy decided the perfect thing to make would be a simple, tasty dish which could be used as a starter, or part of a main meal. The question was, what to make. When he was going through the pantry, he came across a tin of chickpeas and remembered hummus, a middle eastern dish dating back centuries - if fact some people claim it is one of the oldest man made foods in the world! Yet it is simple to make and very tasty, so Roy decided this would be perfect. So this week, Roy Creates Hummus.
You Will Need:
- 1 can of chickpeas, drained and thoroughly rinsed.
- 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
- 50 millilitres of olive oil
- 1 tablespoon of tahini paste (this is a paste made of sesame seeds. Roy just bought his from the local supermarket, but if you can't get it, try adding a drop of sesame oil and sprinkling toasted sesame seeds over the dip before serving it)
- 1/2 a teaspoon of ground cumin
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 spigs of parsely
- 1/2 a teaspoon of Paprika
- Olive oil (to serve)
Note: If you want to cook your own chickpeas from dried, you will need about 150g of dried chickpeas (to equal about a can). Soak them overnight with a heaped teaspoon of bicarbonate soda. Then, rinse them off throughly, soak them for another hour or so, rinse them again and transfer to a pot. Simmer in water with a bayleaf until they are soft. Do not add anything to the water other than the bayleaf (the bayleaf apparently 'helps save the ozone layer' after they are eaten), salt especially will make them hard.
Roy also tried making hummus with dried chickpeas using this soaking method - he soaked 500 grams of dried chickpeas, cooked them in a slow cooker for about 6 hours and then split them into three when they were cooked. He put 2 lots of them into the freezer for later use and used the other third to make another batch of hummus. This hummus was creamier, but we found we needed to adjust the seasonings a little and the flavours matured overnight. We also tried adding some chilli for a different, spicy flavour, which worked really well.
Method:
- Put the chickpeas into a food processor and blend until they are roughly broken up.
- Squeeze the lemon and add the juice and the garlic, roughly chopped, to the chickpeas. Blend to mix them in.
- Add the olive oil, cumin and tahini and blend everything together until you have made a smooth paste.
- Put the hummus into a bowl, making a little well in the middle
- Fill the well with extra olive oil, sprinkle torn up parsely and paprika over the dip and serve with bread, biscuits and vegetable sticks
- Store any leftovers in the refrigerator.