I have to start by saying that the day I wrote this post, after I took the pictures to add to it, I came across a different blog with exactly the same recipe with the same title, referring to the same chef I do in my post. It was unreal. So bizzare! I was a little upset and even felt defeated, as if I was competing against someone and they beat me. And I kept my post unpublished. But after a few weeks I’ve come to change my mind and decided to post it anyway. After all, not everyone visits every blog, and I’m sure that there are people who can enjoy this recipe, who wouldn’t come across it otherwise.
We make hummus at home frequently, and eat it in sandwiches and as a spread served with our Israeli dinner which is usually composed of vegetable salad, some kind of egg, homemade bread, and some spreads like canned tuna or sardines, cheese, avocado, tahini, or hummus. There are many other dinner options as well, and I’ll write more about them in a different post.
In the home I grew up in, we never bought ready-made hummus. We always made it at home. It was good and we liked it and this is how I made my hummus in my own house, until I came across a recipe by chef Michael Solomonov of Zahav Restaurant in Philadelphia. I fell in love. And this has been our hummus recipe for over 10 years.
The only problem with the recipe, though, is that you have to plan ahead of time. You have to soak the chickpeas in water overnight. And then you have to cook them for about 40 minutes with garlic cloves. After that the recipe is a breeze. But sometimes, we want to have the hummus made at the moment we think about it, so we can eat it right away. For that to happen we made a few small changes to Solomonov’s recipe. And we love it.
1 14 oz can cooked chickpeas
1/4 cup liquid from the hummus can
1/4 cup raw tahini paste
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 clove garlic, peeled
1/2 tsp ground cumin
Salt to taste
Drain the chickpeas, and keep the liquid on the side. Place the drained chickpeas in a food processor equipped with the blade feature.
Add the rest of the ingredients to the food processor and process until the mixture becomes a cohesive paste. You can adjust the smoothness to your liking. The longer you process, the smoother the hummus becomes.
That’s it. 5 minutes work and you end up with a delicious hummus. Serve it fresh with some good bread or as a condiment. It can also be refrigerated up to a week.
