chapotraphouse

Fuck it, I'm reposting my quick and dirty DIY hummus recipe; uses canned chickpeas (and probably can be much improved):

The way I do it is more like an amalgamation of many recipes I read on the web, and is pretty disordered; basically:

• Pour both cans of chickpeas in a pot, including the water in the can. Add some more water (not much) after, so that all chickpeas are well covered.
• Bring to a boil. Boil for like two minutes.
• Strain the chickpeas, put the water from the pot aside, do not throw it away.
• Blend the chickpeas. It'll look like a mess due to a lack of hydration; so before blending them you add some of the chickpeas cooking water to the blender on top of the chickpeas. Not much; try it with like five or six large spoons and if it still looks like a mess, add some more. You'll be able to tell when you have added enough: instead of a mess of chickpea fragments you'll see something that has roughly the consistency of hummus when blending. Again, you need very little added cooking water.
• Move all the blended chickpea paste into a recipient. At this point you've got bland hummus: time to spice it up. Add a lot of cumin, the juices from lemons (I use two large lemons for two large chickpea cans and about 4/5 full small spoons of cumin), salt (quite a bit), some pepper, some olive oil, and finally crushed garlic (also quite a bit - I use like 6 or 7 cloves for two large chickpea cans). If you can find it, at this point you can also add one or two large spoons of Tahini - it's a sesame paste similar to peanut butter, except with sesame seeds instead of peanuts (if you can't find it, using sesame oil instead of olive oil above can be an OK alternative). As an aside, if you like a bit of a kick in your hummus, adding more crushed raw garlic at this stage will result in that.
• Mix well. At this point you taste regularly and add spices and/or garlic and/or salt depending on how it tastes. Mix well after every time, until you're happy. Be aware at this point your hummus is likely still hot - the taste will feel different when cold. You can adjust spices and the like later if you want to be sure (though after doing it a few times you'll get the right feel for it even when it's hot).

At the last point, if the consistency isn't right you can add chickpea cooking water and/or olive or sesame oil if needed (usually isn't).