That ‘”individually peel each chick pea” thing just pushed me back into the world of store bought chummus.

Ok, I’ll fess up, it wasn’t just “in an emergency”. I’ve been eating store-bought hummus for 14 years and feeding it to my kids with pita triangles.

I am not a monster. I am not going to be made to feel guilty about this. Single working mother’s have enough to do without having to take out pressure cookers, food processors and baking soda.

I will have my little Prince tear his own pita from now on, but I’m am going to cut his meat for him at his wedding reception.

In the US, use domestic dry chick peas rather than those from Mexico. If you can’t discern the country of origin, avoid the smaller, older chick peas. Try and get them as fresh as possible from a busy place with a high turnover. Canned chick peas, if you MUST use them, need to be rinsed to get rid of the extra salt.

Add a bit of baking soda to the chick peas when soaking them in COLD water. Add a bit to them when cooking as well. It reduces cooking time, allows the water to penetrate the chick peas easier and creates a better consistency Hummus. Using a pressure cooker will also speed up the time required to boil the chickpeas.

How do you know when the chickpeas are ready? Cut one in half. If the inside is uniformly yellow and free of hard, white starchy bits, your chick peas are ready.

Chill your beans before pureeing them, pureeing warm chickpeas will result in a starchy, pasty hummus. Mash the garlic before adding it in for a smoother consistency.

Beyond that, it’s up to your individual taste. Cumin can be added in or you can sprinkle a dash on the finished product. I like my Hummus with a dash of paprika and some parsley. Play around with how much tahini, salt and lemon you use.

As for the skins, you can individually peel each chick pea, or use a strainer to get rid of the mash. It’s your call.

Enjoy and never eat store bought again!

Rachel Ray, cute shiksa that she is, said to add coriander; and Gourmet magazine said to add toasted pine nuts. I was so lost and confused!

I’m afraid of canned chickpeas, they have slime on them.

P.S. I’m hoping to meet my soul-mate in the crusty-ass hippy aisle!

But as far as recipes go, it couldn’t be easier! From Hilkhot Hummus, Masechet Matkonim:

If starting with dry chickpeas:

- Buy a mess o’ dry chickpeas.
- Put them in a pot or bowl, completely covered in water, and let them soak overnight. Do something, or someone, else during this period. Hummus is excellent breakfast food.
- When the chickpeas have soaked, you should then transfer them to a pot – using the same water you soaked them in – and boil them until they’re tender. The ideal here is not a mushy chickpea, but a firm-on-the-outside, yielding-on-the-inside (insert innuendo of your choice here) chickpea which you can pop easily out of its skin by squeezing it between your thumb and forefinger, without compromising the structural integrity of the golden goodness within.
-Drain the chickpeas and reserve the water you used to boil them. Let them cool a little bit.

If starting with canned chickpeas (not preferable, but better than the alternative), I find it helps to boil the chickpeas in a mix of the canning liquid and some added water for about 15 minutes until they reach an optimal state.

Anyway, no matter which chickpeas you use, you have now arrived to a moment of decision. True purists will hand-peel the chickpeas, which makes the hummus smoother – it’s time-consuming alone, but if you have an helper or two it’s not so bad. It’s not a required step, but, you know, just throwing it out there.

Now, take your trusty plus-sized food processor and first puree one to three cloves of garlic, depending on the intimacy of your relationship with that particular flavor.

Then you need what’s called in Hebrew tehina golmit, or raw tehina – not the deli tehina, but the raw unflavored sesame goop. Unfortunately not all tehina golmit is created equal, but that’s what you get for living in Golus. You should be able to find tehina golmit in the crusty-ass hippie section of your supermarket. Put somewhere between a few heaping tablespoons to like, a third of a cup in your food processor. It’s a matter of taste and experimentation.

As far as spices, some put in a little cumin, but adding cumin is, shall we say, d’rabbanan.

Now. Take one lemon and squeeze its juice into the food processor. Be very careful that you don’t lose any lemon seeds in there. One lemon seed can ruin an entire batch of hummus.

Sprinkle some salt.

Now, it’s not required, but at this point I like to blend up what’s in the food processor before adding the chickpeas.

Add the chickpeas, reserving some for garnish. Add a splash of the chickpea boiling liquid and some olive oil to make sure everything blends smoothly.

Blend the shit out of it.

Sample. If the hummus is too thick, add some of the reserved chickpea liquid. If it needs salt, well, you know what to do. If it lacks pizazz, try some more tehina. Fool around with it. It is forgiving.

When you’re done, smooth the hummus out on a wide plate, using the back of a spoon, and leave a depression in the center. Fill the depression with olive oil and warm chickpeas. Sprinkle a little red pepper on top if you wish. Then eat it – WITHOUT pita triangles – and congratulate yourself on having just made the best hummus in your state.

Thanks for saying I’m pretty!

“Not only is Michael pretty, but his eye-witness reports of his experiences during Katrina and subsequent adventures making aliyah are not only compelling and of historical import, but are actually Oprah-worthy!” Chutzpah

You know why Sabra betrays the good name of chummus? They use soybean oil, and assorted other toxic vegetable oils utterly anethema to all the genrations of chummu sapiens to ever walk the earth. Say what you will about the strange flavors in Abrahams or whoever: at least the oils contained within are digestible.

the trick, with abraham’s chummus or any other relatively ok brand, is to cut it with lots of olive oil and garlic until it tastes familiar. I like warming it up over a finjan (or “stove” if that’s all you have available) for that loving illusion of freshness.

…

Anyway. (but no, really, thank you)

Chutzpah – Hilkhot Hummus, Tractate “Et Cherum”: “And Rabbi Michael said: If homemade hummus is beyond one’s capacity, it is permissible to buy supermarket hummus of an Israeli brand (e.g., Sabra). If an Israeli brand is not available, it is incumbent upon you, as with idol worship and adultery, to choose death over Two Sheiks.”

Myrrh – The fact that he’s a tenured professor at the U. of Haifa causes me to view that particular academic institution with ever-so-slightly-narrowed eyes. Bar freakin’ Ilan University has a more moderate, more academically distinguished staff.

One way to criticize effectively is to say, “You’re a wonderful blogger but that was a shitty post.” That way it’s the post that inadvertently happens to be shitty, not the blogger.

Can we all make nice now? We need actuaries in the world, just as we also need snide and cynical posts.

I should be constructive.

Thanks.