Hummus! It’s a passionate food. With a wonderful name. Repeat after me: Hum-mus! Hum…mus! It kinda turns you on, right? 😉

Anway, hummus is yum! It always seems like such a humble food, because it consists of only a few affordable and easy-to-grab ingredients, but its creamy, rich texture (at least to me) screams “I’m sooo luxurious”. At a party, hummus will always be the center of attention and you can totally build a healthy, filling dinner around it with almost no effort at all.

I confess, hummus finds its way into my kitchen only on seldom occasions. I’ll have been hungry for it for a while before I make it. In part, because I almost always forget to place the dry chickpeas in water overnight and by the time I’m actually supposed to be making hummus, they are barely boiling and I feel like roasting them, or making Chana Massala or Falafel. And also, because I always make too much and then end up having to eat hummus for an entire week… But fret not, you can absolutely, without having to feel shame, used canned chickpeas. I’m usually not a fan of canned pulses. There is, of course, always an exception to the rule. In this case, the exception is chickpeas, which are still pretty tasty from a can or a jar in comparison to the homemade version.

The trick to tasty hummus is to add a bit of water. You have no idea how long it took me to figure that one out! I ate bone-dry hummus for years before I did Anyway, here it is, my hummus recipe. Tried and true. You can add garlic, if you want. I find it works best, if you fry it up a little before adding it, in order to get a bit of a richer aroma in there. I’m no fan of raw garlic and I feel the roasted garlic adds a more sophisticated, deeper taste.

I recently made hummus for dinner, and served it with carrot sticks, raw tiny cauliflower florets, potato wafers and toasted glutens-free sour dough bread, which was very crispy before I tore it to shreds and placed onto the platter while it was still warm. I accompanied the hummus dinner platter with a large bowl of salad. It was a delicious pre-summer dinner and a hit with the husband, too!

Ingredients
1 cup cooked chickpeas (drained)
2 tbsp tahini (homemade or bought)
1 tsp fleur de sel
4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
4 tbsp water
optional: 1 tbsp ground cumin

If you are going to make tahini, roast about four tbsp of sesame seeds until they are brown and fragrant. Place into the blending unit of your hand-held blender or other similar appliance. Run the blades through the sesame seeds until they have pulverized into a rustic, rough flour. Add about four tablespoons olive oil and then proceed to blend for another minute or two. Voilà, tahini.

Set tahini aside in a bowl and clean out the blending unit.

Place chickpeas and water into the hand-held blender unit. Run blender for about a minute, until the chickpeas have been chopped up and condensed to a fine mash. Add extra-virgin olive oil and continue blending. You will notice a change in colour in your hummus. Place hummus into a large bowl. Add the tahini, fleur de sel and the lemon juice. Stir well and add any of the tahini, olive oil, tahini or lemon juice, if you feel the taste will change in a direction you prefer as a consequence. I feel ths is best done according to your personal taste or mood that day. 🙂

Serve hummus at room temperature, with fresh veggies, wafers, bread or any other thing you would like to dip it in. Hummus also works really well on sandwiches, e.g. in combination with tomatoes, salad leaves and avocado.