My husband and I have been keeping our dinners light during this lockdown. It typically comprises of soups, sandwiches, and salads. Therefore it’s always helpful to have an accompanying ‘sauce’ of sorts that can add more flavour to all of the above. And, what better way to stay healthy than to whip them up at home with fresh ingredients mostly sourced from organic farms here in Bangalore.
So I tried this hummus recipe and here is how it went!
Drain the water in which the chickpeas have been soaking overnight.
Wash them well (my mother’s superstition to wash them thrice is being carried on by me! Scientifically, it makes sense to do this because when we first add water to any pulses, it turns white and with a couple of washes or three, the white part of the liquid becomes transparent showing that the beans are super clean :) )
Pressure cook the chickpeas with 1 or 1.5 cups of water for 8-9 whistles. This may take 5-10 minutes. You can do a couple of less or a couple more whistles also. (I can never figure out how long these things take to be done so I think I usually do more than less for the tougher beans/pulses.)
Once done leave it aside for some time and let the pressure subside. Release the remaining pressure by lifting the whistle with a wooden or cooking spoon and open the cooker.
With a slotted spoon, remove only the chickpeas and transfer to a mixie. You can also use a hand-held mixer which I use a lot and tends to be very useful for large quantities of soup or even hummus, but I did not for this.
Add half of the olive oil and the rest of the ingredients and let the mixie run. You may have to use a spatula or spoon to ensure the mixie is able to pulse the top half of the ingredients as finely as the bottom half. Add rest of the olive oil and let the mixie run until you see a fine paste of chickpea hummus. If you find that the hummus doesn’t look smooth you need to add more oil until it looks smooth.
Serve it with warm pita bread, or apply it as a spread on regular bread of your choice, or add a little into your salad to give it some more bite.
Voila! Your parsley chilli garlic hummus is ready.
Refrigerate leftovers
Be generous with the olive oil drizzle.
You may want to keep aside a few whole cooked chickpeas for a garnish.
You can add more or less chillies, depending on how spicy you want it or leave it out altogether). You can also use diced green chillies.
