Hummus
- AuntieWicked
- Sep 24, 2010
- 7 min read
Hummus comes from hummus beans?
a true story by A.illumi
really had no idea what Hummus was made of until assigned myself this blog! The thought never crossed my mind as I was shoveling it onto pita chips, veggie crackers, and various shovel like food items. I knew it was a dip – i knew you could buy it, for a premium, at most large grocery stores (in the deli section) but what I didn’t know was: WHAT IT WAS? and Where it came from?Lumi learns best with her hands so – in order to find out what it was – she set to making some!
Lumi’s, “No tahini sold here” Hummus Adventure:
The recipe I used came from here.The best part about the recipe is it is EASY and when i say easy i don’t mean the food network cooking lady says it’s easy but it’s really hard for anyone who doesn’t cook gourmet mint lamb all the time easy – I mean EASY for an Auntie who BELIEVES that anything but holiday meals should never require more than thirty minutes of intensive attention! Great news is – this hummus came in WAY below that – start to finish was exactly as the about.com people said –TEN minutes! and you can just pour everything you need straight into the blender – and EVERYTHING is like four things!!
One of which is NOT HUMMUS BEANS but chick peas but which is funny because the word hummus actually does mean chick pea! I had been concerned about the tahini controversy and my lack of ability to find it until I talked to the Chef at my local grocery store and SHE said she has made hummus with and without tahini and that without is just as good – so there you go grocery store chef approved!
So here’s the ingredients all in:
After three minutes of the possible three to six minutes allotted for blending – I used a blender not a food processor because the blender scares Lumi less…out came nice smooth but not like store smooth – which i actually liked – HUMMUS. there it was – all done – no waiting – no testing nope it was ready to EAT!
So i spooned some out onto veggie chips – don’t hate or think that that’s some like a snob thing…you can totally get them in the chip aisle now – but pita or tortilla chips work just as well! So the taste? fantastic – this hummus recipe is very lemoney – which was nice – it had zing! My only issue – was that the consistency was a little more liquidey than my absolute preference = so i decided with my mother’s advice of going to1/8 c. bean juice in hand – to do it again!
The Lumified Hummus Recipe went like this:
1 16 oz can of chick peas/garbanzo beans(drained)1/8 can bean juice (reserved from draining)3 tbsp lemon juice1 tsp jarred minced garlic1/2 tsp salt2 tbsp olive oildill and anatole or paprika for garnish or whatever u like to garnish with!
drain the chick peas – save the juice. Put all the listed ingredients in the blender(i love throw everything in RECIPES). Then blend it. You have to blend it in thirty seconds bursts due to the reduced liquid the hummus puffs up out of the blade and you have to push it down so your blender doesn’t catch on fire. But after about three minutes of thirty seconds bursts you have hummus – with zero extra liquidness – also if you start at the 1/8 cupe you can SLOWLY add liquid as desired! another plus of homemade lumified hummus? you get an air filled whipped result – very light an fluffy! And a side note – if pictures of hummus scare you because it looks like pinish baby puke ?NEVER fear – MOST of my pictures come out looking baby pukish and many pink! The hummus in eal life looks lovely light golden and resembles nothing like puke – so don’t be scared!
Now after that lumi couldn’t help but remember that during my preliminary peep at Hummus on the net – i saw that people sometimes stuff cherry tomatoes with HUmmus – after tasting this homemade hummus I had to give it a go – so I grabbed a plastic baggie and broke off a tip from last birthdays frosting can and went to work.
Hummus Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes – LUmi style
one plastic sandwich baggiefrosting tip (if you have one)as many cherry tomatoes as you want to eat/serve or have enough hummus forhummus – store bought or homemade(make sure to use the lumified about.com recipe)
Cut out a little well in the cherry tomato – i used a Super sharp paring knife and just spiraled around in a smaller circle than I needed and then took of a little more as I could see that the tomato was still going to hold up despite me taking out it’s belongings!After i finished coring out about 12 of them – I started filling them and OH how beautiful they looked!
Until they fell over….yup ladies and gentleman lumi would like to make a general announcement of fact for future cherry tomato stuffers – unlike traditional tomatoes that have a somewhat flattened bottom – cherry tomatoes are ROUND…and round things roll and tip – especially if they are top heavy with stuffings of lemoney hummus!
(I totally took that picture – those are really the stuffers I MADE – of coure it took sixty pictures but really they are this CUTE!)
It tasted crisp and zesty and a little sweet from the tomato – it was super good! Make sure to use a drier hummus – like lumi style for stuffing tomatoes because they have a lot of juices inside! The cherry tomatoes did refrigerate well for up to 24 hours – after that they did get a little crusty on top and the cherry tomatoes themselves began to give way. So as with most things the closer to serving time the better but they can stand a little refrigeration!
Now it seems that a lot of hummus that people make and like and especially the more gourmet-er has a sesame paste called tahini: this apparently is what tahini would look like if you COULD buy some!
– unfortunately, lumi lives no where near anywhere that anyone cares about sesame seeds except on buns! So lumi decided to find research a little on hummus with no tahini and found some interesting results:Some people use natural peanut butter or light skippy peanut butter to replace the tahini?Many comments from people across the world said that was gross and gave the hummus a weird taste – eek – Lumi decided the only to KNOW was to try it out! I used the same recipe as above just added one tablespoon of almond butter – which is the average amount of tahini people use – mind you many hummus afficionados think the very act of [putting anything like peanut butter into hummus is heresy – hahaha all the more fun to try it!And here it is:
And it was okay…it would go really well with a east indian themed cuisine night? Not as much an everyday snacking on pita chips kind of dip though!
People also add ALL kind s of things to hummus to flavor it –– olives– pine nuts– capers-pistachiossome people make a hummis-ish thing out of black beans – but you need tahini – curse you tahini!My mother even has a recipe for carrot hummus!
I also found loads of things people like to do with Hummus – though I kept my google safe filter on – so if your interested in THOSe things that peolpe might do with hummus please fee free to do that search on your own!– deviled eggs made with hummus as a substitute– ravioli stuffed with hummus– in casserole
I hope you have enjoyed our hands on portion of this article- it inspired the Auntie to be really curious about where this stuff came from and as usual where Lumi goes to look she finds almost always a mystery! It seems
when you eat chick peas you really are taking a bite out of history! Hummus may be as old as 10,000 – and may have been made in egypt – but there’s a trick – hummus is actually the word for chikpea in arabic. So it’s chicpeas that FOR SURE were used way way back into human history – but whether they mashed them with olive oil not sure? In comes the distinction Hummus bah tahini – hahah the tahina is the key after all!
It could have been that it originated in Damascus
is it from this book? which is an anonymous arabic cookbook? if it is does that mean that lebanon should be able to claim it as a national cuisine? learn what global intellectual property is and how it applies or doesn’t to the crazed world of historical cuisine!
To give you an idea of how expansive the history of hummus is – here is a list of the places that have article mentions on the ancient history of hummus:South turkeySyriaLebanonNorth IraqIsraelPalestineAsia MinorAfricaRome
Everything lumi read kept saying that hummus hit the United states in 1910 – what is special about 1910 you ask? 1910 was “the last decade in American history that immigration from Europe was unrestricted” – people from all over europe brought all kinds of new culture and cuisine to our country – including apparently hummus. Though the word hummus didn’t hit the OED until 1950! – amazing that something that can be styled so hipster and snobbish actually has a hundred years history in the United States! Lumi really wonders how many foods have a really amazing history? After writing the heart wrenching Eating Article and talking about all the ways and problems and hardness that can be eating it has been an nice flip to remember that eating can also be about making things and celebrating and even our history of human civilization…WOw and all that blogging and learning came to lumi from just these tiny hummus beans:
LEFTOVERS!
Interesting extra hummus facts:
* the WORD HUMMUS actually means chickpea and garbanzo is SPANISH for chick pea!
* Lebanese Hummus made in Jordan actually uses yogurt instead of tahini – this kind of hummus is called musalbaha
* fusion hummus refers to hummus made with various vinegars-there is also a theory that if egyptians DID make hummus – this is how they would have done it!
* hummus is sometimes prepared as a dessert in Iraq
* ful madames: is mashed fava beans with essentially the same ingredients as hummus and is served sometimes in layers with hummus bi tahini!
And of course – more links for hummusey things!
Thank you for reading lumi’s adventure in Hummus Land – the autnies always want to hear from you! Let us know about your hummus adventures or your opinions on nations claiming the rights to food or anything!
e-mail lumi:
a_illumination@hotmail.com
LEAVE US SOME COMMENTS – OPInIONS – critiques – links to your money making scams – come on!
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