Smooth Hummus
The two steps that separate silky hummus from grainy: overcook the chickpeas with bicarbonate of soda, and whip the tahini with ice water first.
Nutrition Info (per serving)
- 260
- Calories
- 9g
- Protein
- 16g
- Fat
- 22g
- Carbs
Ingredients
- 250 g dried chickpeas
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 150 g tahini
- 3 lemons
- 2 cloves garlic
- 100 ml ice water
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1.5 tsp salt
- Olive oil, paprika and parsley, to serve
Instructions
- 1Cover the dried chickpeas with plenty of cold water, stir in half the bicarbonate of soda, and soak overnight.
- 2Drain and rinse. Put them in a saucepan with the remaining bicarbonate of soda and cover with fresh water by about 5 cm.
- 3Bring to the boil, skimming off the foam and any loose skins that float up, then simmer for 45 to 60 minutes, until the chickpeas are genuinely falling apart. A chickpea should collapse to paste when pressed between two fingers with almost no effort. This is well past what looks cooked, and it is the point.
- 4Drain and let them cool slightly. Do not rinse in cold water.
- 5Grate the garlic and put it in a bowl with the juice of 2 lemons and a pinch of salt. Leave for 10 minutes — the acid softens the raw garlic bite, which otherwise dominates.
- 6In a food processor, blitz the tahini with the ice water and the strained garlic-lemon juice for a full 2 minutes. It will seize, then thin, then turn pale and fluffy. This whipping step is what makes the finished hummus light instead of dense.
- 7Add the warm chickpeas, the cumin and the salt, and blend for 3 to 4 minutes. Longer than feels necessary — stop early and it is grainy.
- 8With the motor running, add cold water a tablespoon at a time until it is loose and glossy. It should look slightly too soft; hummus firms up considerably as it cools.
- 9Taste and adjust with the last lemon and more salt.
- 10Spread into a bowl, make a swirl with the back of a spoon, and pour olive oil into the well. Dust with paprika and scatter with parsley.
Almost all homemade hummus is grainy, and almost all of it is grainy for the same two reasons. Neither has anything to do with the quality of the tahini.
Overcook the chickpeas, with bicarbonate of soda
Chickpea skins are made of insoluble fibre that never breaks down in a blender. They are the grit you can feel.
Bicarbonate of soda raises the pH of the cooking water, which weakens pectin and accelerates the breakdown of those skins dramatically. Many of them float free during cooking and can be skimmed off; the rest go soft enough to disappear in the processor.
At the same time, the chickpeas need to be cooked far past the point of tender. Aim for collapsing. A chickpea that still holds its shape will not blend smooth no matter how long you run the machine.
Tinned chickpeas can be used and simmered for a further twenty minutes with bicarbonate of soda, which helps a great deal. From dried is still noticeably better.
Whip the tahini before anything else
Tahini plus ice water, blitzed alone for two minutes, goes through a strange sequence: it stiffens into a paste, then loosens, then turns pale and aerated.
That aeration is what gives good hummus its light, almost mousse-like body. Add the tahini at the same time as everything else and it never happens — you get a dense purée instead.
Ice water rather than tap water. The temperature difference genuinely helps the emulsion hold.
Blend for longer than feels right
Three to four minutes of continuous blending, with the machine getting warm. Most people stop at ninety seconds because it looks finished, and the result is smooth to the eye and grainy on the tongue.
Tame the garlic with acid
Raw garlic in an uncooked dip turns harsh and lingers unpleasantly, and it gets stronger as the hummus sits. Steeping grated garlic in lemon juice for ten minutes and then straining it out gives you all the flavour and none of the burn.
Make it loose
Hummus thickens noticeably as it cools and again in the fridge. What looks correct in the processor will be stiff on the plate. Take it further than you think — it should ripple slowly when the bowl is tilted.
Nutrition
Around 260 calories a serving from eight, with useful protein and a lot of fibre. Chickpeas are a strong source of folate and manganese; tahini brings calcium, copper and most of the fat.
It keeps for five days in the fridge under a film of olive oil, and it freezes well for three months.
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