Although in this same blog I gave the hummus recipe a long time ago, it was a simplified recipe with easy-to-find ingredients in western countries. However currently is more easy to find some spices and ingredientes to make an authentic arabic hummus.
INGREDIENTS :
2 cups of dried chickpeas (the usual glass for drinking water, between 200 and 250 ml)
6 tablespoons tahini
5 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
Cumin powder
Paprika
First we soak the chickpeas in at least 1 liter (5 cups) of bottled water. We leave all night.
The next day the chickpeas will have been rehydrated. It is time to cook them. For this step we can use tap water (at least triple the volume of chickpeas) and boil them for about an hour and a half, without adding salt. After the time we check the hardness of chickpeas and if they are tender - they should be able to be crushed simply by pressing a little on them - they are ready.
We remove from the water - which we reserve - and let cool. Once cold we put in the fridge for at least a couple of hours. From the cooking water that we have reserved, half a cup (100 ml) is taken to the refrigerator as well, in the coldest part of it. If you have a glass blender capable of chopping the ice, bring that cooking water to the freezer. Later I explain why.
Once we have the chickpeas very cold we place it in the blender glass and reduce it to a homogeneous paste without lumps.
Then add the lemon juice, tahini sauce and oil, plus a teaspoon of salt. Tahini is a sauce that is made with sesame and that can be bought in large stores or Arab-oriental food stores.
We turn several times until the ingredients are well integrated.
The humus thus obtained will have a much paler color than what you are accustomed if you take it in restaurants or buy it already made. This is due to the fact that industrial products carry natural dyes while in restaurants they use a trick that consists in grinding part of the cooking water, previously frozen, at the same time that we incorporate the lemon, oil and tahini. This will give a brighter color.
If the color does not matter for you and you only look for the flavor, you will not need to use frozen water. In this case, the cooking water that we have reserved will help us to make the hummus more liquid in case the resulting paste is too thick.
The chickpea paste is poured into a bowl and in the center we make a small hole where we pour some extra oil. Also, if we want, sprinkle some ground cumin and paprika on top.
It is eaten with a flat plan, soaking it in a little of the center oil and pinching the hummus paste.
As you can see an elaborated recipe that differs from the one given earlier in this blog and that only contained chickpeas, lemon juice, oil and salt, by the use of dried chickpeas and the use of tahini, which gives it a very characteristic flavor.