Hummus – so simple, so versatile, and oh so moreish! Everyone needs a hummus recipe up their sleeve for times when you need a quick n tasty dip, or are looking for something to jazz up an otherwise boring vegetable or salad side. There’ll be no more store-bought hummus for you once you’ve mastered the art of making your own 😉

This one’s not strictly speaking a low-tech recipe, as I make it with a food processor… but you could do the hard yards with a pestle and mortar if you wanted to… or if you really had to… 😛

Here’s how I pull together a crowd-pleasing bowl of hummus, great served with a warm chunk of flatbread, or as an accompaniment to a range of Middle Eastern treats…!

Flavour: Savoury and a little smoky

Yield: Enough hummus for your contribution to a potluck party, or enough hummus for you to dip into over the course of a week – all depends on how you look at it, and what size servings your restraint is capable of 😉

Ingredients:

• 2 cups chickpeas, soaked overnight and pre-cooked (and at least semi-thawed, if you’re using them from frozen stock)
  • See here for my tip on preparing chickpeas – you can ensure you have a stash in the freezer, ready to whip up some hummus any time
• 2 tablespoons tahini
• 2 cloves garlic
• half teaspoon salt
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 cup water (you probably won’t need all of this)

Optional extras:

• olive oil, to serve
• paprika, to serve
• finely chopped parsley, to serve
• a handful of chickpeas or pine nuts, to serve

Directions:

1. Pop the chickpeas, garlic, salt, lemon juice and tahini in the food processor, and give it a few quick blasts on high speed, remembering to scrape the excess from the sides of the food processor between blasts to make sure it’s all well-incorporated
2. Once your hummus is coming together, blended nice and smooth, you can add a little water to loosen it up, if need be – just add a little splash at a time, pulse the blender again, and check the consistency – keep doing this until your hummus is the consistency you want it to be (I like mine quite thick so I can get a really good dollop of it on a piece of flatbread, but not so thick that I have to scrape the bowl to get it on the bread 😉 )
3. Serve in a shallow bowl with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of paprika (your hummus will keep fine in the fridge for up to a week, so you can make this in advance if you don’t plan to use it immediately)

Best served as an accompaniment to a Middle Eastern feast of falafels, fasolia, and Lebanese cauliflower 😀