Hummus

Yesterday, Aziza taught me how to make Hummus. Aziza (Im Ibrahim) lives in an Arab village a bit North of us called Kalanswa. She has like 11 kids, the youngest being 10 and also a bunch of grandkids. Every Thursday, she teaches me to cook Arab food (I think she thinks I am a bit useless at cooking) but so far we have made: awesome cauliflower patties, rice with pine nuts, eggplant and tehina salad, a bunch of other salatim (the red pepper one blew our heads off it was so spicy) as well as the tabouleh that I posted last week. Next week we are doing Shakshuka. Am learning a bit of Arabic in the process, whachta whactha. Of course, bare in mind that there are no accurate amounts to anything.


Ingredients
1/2 kilo dry chick peas. Soak overnight.
500 grams good tehina (we used what I had at home and she was NOT impressed- so buy some with Arabic on the bottle)
5 cloves of garlic or more if you like
Juice of 4 lemons, or more if you like
A small handful of salt. (looked like at least 3 Tbsp, I kid you not)
A tablespoon of baking powder- Apparently this helps them to cook fast. (Some people soak the beans with bicarb of soda and or cook them using soda water)


Method
Cook chickpeas with the baking powder for around 45 minutes, in pressure cooker, till the chickpeas are really really soft. Let cool a while.

Add the tehina (a whole bottle), peeled garlic cloves, salt, lemon juice and stir. At this point you can take about a cup out and set aside. Its called musabacha, and is served as a garnish on top of the hummus.

In food processor, process the whole mixture really well, in two batches until super smooth.
Adjust the seasoning



Serve with good olive oil drizzled on top, hot paprika, the musabacha and chopped parsley. I didn't have parsley and we forgot to save that cup of Musabacha so they are not in the picture.
(Check out that huge pita Aravi)