Gateway to Peru
Restaurateurs (and their llamas) bring a taste of the country’s cuisine and culture to Santa Fe
Chickpeas are in my hair, lemon rinds are on the floor, and tahini paste is flung on the ceiling. I spoon my creation into a rinsed-out to-go container and drizzle some olive oil on top.
“Look! Hummus!” I say to my roommates as I pass tortilla chips. OK, so the hummus is a little lumpy, no doubt because I made it in a plastic zip-top bag. I’m still beaming with pride. My newfound ability to turn canned chickpeas into my favorite food will serve me well for years to come, cutting my grocery bills in half given my hummus-centric diet.
This was back in the day, when you needed to visit a gourmet shop to find prepared hummus; it would be a few years before hummus commanded its own supermarket aisle. But even now, it’s dramatically cheaper to make your own, and the result is so much tastier.
A quart of hummus sounds like a lot, but when you make it yourself, you eat more of it because it tastes better than store-bought. A lack of preservatives is one reason from-scratch hummus is so different. Typical ingredients in the packaged stuff, such as citric acid and potassium sorbate, give hummus a long storage life but contribute artificial sour notes that don’t even suggest the fresh lemon flavor that’s supposed to be there. And no brand of hummus I’ve ever tasted has enough tahini, an ingredient equal in importance to the chickpeas, to make for a truly luxurious spread. The best hummus has a higher-than-youthink tahini-to-chickpea ratio.
Here are my guidelines for making the best hummus and getting the most out of it:
Start with canned chickpeas. As with most home cooking, the quality of your finished product starts with the quality of the ingredients. You might think that means I’m going to tell you to cook your own chickpeas from dried, but that isn’t worth the effort. Depending on their age, dried chickpeas can be hard to cook evenly. They can overcook, absorbing too much water and yielding an overly loose hummus. And if some chickpeas in your batch don’t cook enough, you might be left with a gritty final product.
In this case, the easy way is also the better way: Buy canned chickpeas. But not all canned chickpeas are equal. For perfectly seasoned and tender chickpeas that make the best hummus, go with Goya brand. They’re cheap and ubiquitous, and they really do taste the best. Whatever brand you buy, skip the salt-free versions. They are also taste-free and will yield a bland, spiritually inert hummus nobody wants to eat.
Choose good tahini. It can range from delicious to wholly unpalatable. I prefer either Soom or Whole Foods’ 365 brand, but any tahini that smells fresh and tastes rich and clean with just the slightest edge of pleasant bitterness will do the trick. A good rule: Don’t put tahini you wouldn’t enjoy spooning directly into your mouth into your hummus.
Use every bit. And finally, when you have just a few spoonfuls of hummus left at the bottom of your container, I encourage you to whisk the remnants into a homemade or bottled vinaigrette to toss with salad. Just a little hummus thickens the dressing, making it lush without dairy, and proves that a big batch of homemade hummus is good to the last drop.
SPEEDY HOMEMADE HUMMUS
Total time: 5 minutes; 16 servings (makes about 4 cups) Making a well-whipped tahini sauce in the food processor before you add the chickpeas makes for a lighter-textured hummus. Even when you are in a hurry, let the hummus purée for the full 3 minutes for best results.
I like to use Goya brand canned chickpeas (not low-sodium) for this recipe; according to the magazine Today’s Dietitian, rinsing and draining them reduces the amount of sodium by 41 percent. 1 clove garlic ¾ cup water ¾ cup tahini ¼ cup lemon juice (from 1 lemon) 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon ground cumin Two 15.5-ounce cans chickpeas, rinsed and drained Preparation: Pulse the garlic in a food processor until it is minced.
Add the water, tahini, lemon juice, salt and cumin and purée for about 1 minute, until the mixture becomes light-textured and smooth. (It should be pourable, not pasty.) Add the drained/ rinsed chickpeas; purée for about 3 minutes, until very smooth.
Serve or store in an airtight container, for up to 1 week.
Nutrition (based on ¼-cup servings): Servings per container: 16; calories: 140; total fat: 7 g; saturated fat: 1 g; cholesterol: 0 mg; sodium: 270 mg; total carbohydrates: 15 g; dietary fiber: 4 g; sugars: 2 g; protein: 6 g.