My Favorite Hummus

Hummus is interesting stuff.  

I've had so many variations of hummus from amazing to downright indelible.  

I'm not talking about the flavored versions of hummus that have exploded on the food scene in the last ten years, I'm just talking about the traditional varieties.

At one restaurant where I used to work, the cooks had it in their head that they needed to make five gallon batches in a tall square container using one of those three foot immersion blenders to mix and purée it.  

The recipe was pretty dry as hummus goes, so it was rare that all of the chickpeas even met the blender once much less enough times to become part of the smooth consistency that was intended. 

I tried to reason with them that if they made smaller batches more often and used the Robocoup (the best food processor available in my opinion), we would have a better product.  This argument was dismissed out of hand before I had even finished it.

Anyway, they wanted to prep it one time a week, so by the fifth day in that large container, it began to discolor and crack from the inevitable evaporation of the small amount of liquid in the recipe and two gallons would be wasted.

I was unable to alter the recipe as we were held to the recipes of the brand.

On other occasions I have had exceptional versions and wondered why there could be this much variation by professional cooks.  In the last few years it seems that half the recipes stray from the traditional and have an added flavor, for instance the most common that I see is the addition of roasted peppers.  

The recipe that I will share with you today is not so much traditional, although it tastes that way, was developed by myself, a chef that worked for me and at least one other chef within our company.

Let's get started.  Here's the recipe:

4 - 15 oz cans of chickpeas

4    Medium garlic cloves

3   Oz toasted sesame oil

2   Oz extra virgin olive oil

2-3 oz lemon juice

Kosher salt

4  oz boiling water

Read this one over once or twice and you'll notice a couple of anomalies.  First of all, there is no tahini, the sesame oil replaces it, and also the addition of boiling water is unusual.  I don't remember where we got that part, but it is the thing that makes this recipe exceptional!  

Drain the canned chickpeas completely and rinse. 

Place them in your food processor. 

Rough chop the garlic before adding it to the chick peas.  This will help you get them more completely incorporated.

 Add garlic, salt, lemon juice and olive oil.  Purée.

While the chickpeas are being blended, bring some water to a boil.  I use a tea kettle because it is easy to pour it into my cuisinart.

The addition of boiling water not only adds a little more moisture to the hummus, it also allows the chickpeas to be more uniformly puréed.  This step also creates a fluffy, and light quality to the final product that is missing in many recipes.

I have tried a great many recipes for hummus over the years and believe that this one stands head and shoulders above the rest.

Let me know what you think.

Next up: Curried Chicken Skewers (finally)

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