Yesterday I had a craving for a dish my Dad makes – roasted beetroot and chickpeas with rosemary, olive oil and feta. But alas after soaking and cooking my dried chickpeas and all, I couldn't find beetroot. As soon as I do, I will make and blog about the above but the obvious thing to do with the lonely chickpeas in my fridge was to make hummus.
Despite the obvious convenience of canned chickpeas, I really think they taste a bit funny. Kind of like tinned peas don’t taste right either. If I’m in a pinch I most certainly will use tinned chick peas but if I can I soak and slow cook the dried ones. I felt like being a little experimental today so I decided to roast the key ingredients of hummus before pureeing them, as I love the flavour of roasted things. It has a nice winery hearty taste. The result was really good! It was a little bitty at first but I pureed it bit longer to get it smoother but it had all that smoky savoury flavour I had hoped for.
I love snacking on crudités with a hummus dip as an in between meal snack. You can also glam it up a little and swirl some harissa paste in the dip and reserve some of the roasted chickpeas to garnish it with (or sesame seeds and a sprinkle of paprika like I did in the pic) if you wanted to serve a crudité starter snack for guests.
Kids often love hummus too. I mix it with cottage cheese and dash of chutney which can make it more accessible to kids. It also makes a great addition to my ‘rice moosh’.
Roast chickpea and sesame hummus
Makes about three cups
2 cups of soaked and cooked (or canned) chickpeas
2 Tbsp of sesame seeds
2 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of smoked paprika (optional)
½ tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
1 Tbsp of olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced
2 Tbsp of lemon juice
1 tsp of grated lemon rind
1 tsp of salt
½ a cup of olive oil
1 ½ - 2 cups of water
Preheat the oven on grill and place the wire rack in the centre. Scatter the chickpeas, sesame seeds, spices and oil into a roasting pan and roast them for 10 – 15 minutes or until just starting to brown. Add the garlic slices about 5 minutes before the roasting is done (I added them at the beginning and they burned a little).
Blend the roasted ingredients (scrap the spices and oil from the pan into the blender too) and blend with all the remaining ingredients. Add as much water as needed to achieve the desired consistency and blend long enough to get the mixture smooth.
Hummus freezes well, so you can make extra and defrost it when needed.
how long do you have to soak and cook the chickpeas? would you cook them longer if you don't roast them afterwards?
ReplyDeleteThe packet you buy them in should have cooking instructions for you, but my advice would be to soak them overnight or for a few hours as this speeds up the cooking time. Then cover them with water and keep them on low simmer until they are cooked to you preferred softness, this could take about an hour or so. You can also put them dry into a slow cooker, cover them with water and leave them for the day. I cooked mine from dry by bringing them to the boiling and turning my stove down to one and leaving them for a few hours, but I was around the house and didn’t need to leave.
ReplyDeletei'm going to hunt down beetroot to make your dad's dish, you've given me a craving for it!LOL... If no beets can be found, the hummus will be next on the list. I also cook my chickpeas from dried ones, I get them from Durbs at ridiculously good value especially when you buy in bulk.. So tasty!
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