Making a Hero out of Hummus
It's not just for picnics
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Around the corner from my apartment is a small lunchtime restaurant called Protest Kitchen. Their slogan is average vibe, ordinary food, drinkable coffee which of course is steeped in intentional irony because their food, vibe, and coffee are all excellent.
I’m there for lunch most weeks and almost always, my husband orders their hummus dish. One of the owners, Fanis, is Cypriot and hummus plays an important part in their cuisine, so it’s no surprise to see it on the menu week after week.
During the summer and autumn, the dish was spiced chicken piled onto smooth layers of hummus. Last week the menu had changed to reflect the cold weather to slow-roast beef, red wine, and thyme.
In other words, a full meal.
Like much of the UK, I grew up with cheap supermarket hummus which would make an appearance at picnics or as part of the British institution of the ‘picky tea’ (dinner made up from bits and bobs from the fridge).
I never considered using hummus as the star until Protest Kitchen showed me how. Sure, sometimes I’d swirl in a bit of smoked paprika, cumin, or, if I was feeling fancy, pesto. But as a dish in itself? Nope.
A couple of weeks ago, I introduced the idea of swooshable labneh — the base upon which countless toppings can rest. Today, I’m talking about swooshable hummus.
You can for sure buy supermarket hummus for this, but I would implore you to make your own if you have a spare 30 minutes. Storebought hummus is pretty lukewarm in flavour compared to homemade and has a completely different texture. Think thin and lumpy rather than dense and smooth.
The base for my hummus recipe is from Ottolenghi, the master of Levant cooking. The intro to his recipe contains an interesting observation:
Recently, Noor wrote a little ode to hummus, sharing her tips, tricks and hummus hacks, and was amazed at the response. What seemed like second nature to her was not always the case for others and, all of a sudden, hummus regained its rightful place on the throne of foods-we-need-to-continue-talking-about.
They’re right. I’ve followed a lot of online hummus recipes and so many don’t work. The texture is too grainy or the flavour is too weak. For a long time I resorted to the hummus stocked in my local Turkish supermarket which was excellent but still contained a lot of preservatives and honestly, was quite expensive for what it was.
Homemade hummus is different. It’s primarily made of storecupboard ingredients — decent chickpeas, tahini, and olive oil, as well as lemon juice and garlic. All five ingredients are staples of my capsule pantry so it makes sense to make it from scratch.
As for the toppings, I was inspired by Protest Kitchen to develop a spiced chicken thigh marinade for the main recipe this week, but as always I’ve got a bunch of alternative toppings for you, from knock-it-up-quick to slow roast, to leftovers.
Stick this with a few flatbreads and maybe a labneh dish on the side and you’ve not got a picky tea — you’ve got a feast.
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Homemade hummus
Makes enough for 4 people