Chickpeatastic...

Life at the moment is a big bundle of uncertainty and change. A bit cryptic, but I shall hopefully expand in a few weeks when it's all less uncertain. Needless to say there's some other life stuff going on other than my impending house move...

Ahem.

Anyway, when stressed, I have a tendancy to cook. At the weekend, my chosen food was houmous. Now, I make houmous quite a lot, but I've never managed to make good plain houmous - every time I've tried, I've been left with slightly bland mush. So my usual lazy recipe consists of sticking a can of chickpeas, some sundried tomatoes, tahini, lemon juice, salt and garlic in my food processor and keeping it fairly chunky...

But I was determined not to be beaten - it must be possible to make good plain houmous at home. Then last weekend, success! I tried a new recipe that I found online - a bit more time consuming, but the results... delicious, light, fluffy, tasty, smooth houmous! It's now definately my go-to recipe for houmous, and I feel the need to share it... The only warning is that it makes a *lot* of houmous, so you might want to consider halving the recipe...

So for any other houmous lovers out there:
- 1/2 pound dried chickpeas (about 450g)
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- 7 garlic cloves, unpeeled
- 1/4 cup olive oil (1/4 cup = 4 tbsp)
- 1/4 cup tahini
- 1/4 cup lemon juice (I added an extra couple of tbsp)
- 1/4 tsp ground cumin
- salt
- paprika

1) In a bowl, cover the dried chickpeas with 2 inches of water and add the baking soda. Refrigerate overnight. Drain the chickpeas and rinse them under cold water.

2) In a pan, cover the chickpeas with 2 inches of fresh water. Add the garlic cloves and bring to a boil. Simmer over moderately low heat until the chickpeas are tender, prob about 40 minutes. Drain, reserving the cooking water. Rinse the chickpeas under cold water. Peel the garlic cloves.

3) In a food processor, puree the chickpeas with about 1/2 cup of the reserved cooking water, the olive oil and 6 of the garlic cloves. Add the cumin along with the tahini and lemon juice and process until creamy. Season the houmous with salt and transfer to a serving bowl.

4) Sprinkle with paprika and serve!