Yotam Ottolenghi’s Hummus

Fresh from the garden: lemon, sage, parsley

Recipe source: adapted from a recipe by Yotam Ottolenghi’s beautiful and inspirational book, Plenty

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This recipe is really worthy setting the reminder app on your phone to soak the beans… it is totally delicious and I defy you not to keep eating the whole lot… and why not? It’s really only chickpeas, tahini and water! Hooray!

What to do:

• Before cooking the chickpeas you will need to soak them overnight. Place them in a large non-metallic bowl with double their volume of water and a tablespoon of bicarb.

Start of lesson:

• Drain the chickpeas into the colander and rinse them well, then put them into the medium saucepan with about 3cm cold water to cover.
• Rinse the sage, keeping the branch whole, and shake dry. Peel 3 of the garlic cloves and add them, whole, to the saucepan. Also add the branch of sage and a grind of pepper. Bring to the boil, then set on a low heat & simmer for about 30 minutes until totally soft and easy to mush.
• Juice the lemon half. Crush the remaining 3 cloves of garlic.
• Wash and spin dry the parsley carefully, pick off the leaves and chop finely.
• Drain the chickpeas into the sieve over a clean bowl, reserving the cooking liquid. Transfer them & the cooked garlic cloves to the food processor, keeping a few to garnish at the end, and add the tahini, a tablespoon of lemon juice, the crushed garlic, and ½ teaspoon salt. Blitz for a minute or two until totally smooth.
• Add some of the cooking liquid and blitz again. You want the mixture to be very soft, almost runny, but just holding its shape. Taste and add more salt if you like.
• To serve, spread the warm hummus onto your serving plates, drizzle with a little stream of olive oil, a sprinkle of paprika, the reserved chickpeas and the chopped parsley.

Notes: What are pulses? Can you name any others? What is tahini? Where does hummus come from? What else you could eat hummus with?