Hummus

Hummus actually takes overnight if you do it correctly. But you can easily skip the step and buy canned chickpeas if you find that you need this to go faster. We’ll get to that.

Soak dried chickpeas in a bowl of water. Shuck and add 4 or 5 whole garlic cloves. Do not chop them. Just drop them in the bowl, and let that all sit in the fridge overnight.

When it is time for hummus, drain the water, but reserve about 1 cup of the liquid.

Take a skillet and place in a solid layer of sesame seeds. Cover this layer barely with olive oil. Put the burner on low and let the oil and the seeds come to temperature together. Don’t move the pan too much, let it happen. When the sesame seeds are just an itty bit toasty, you are done. So note the colour. Sesame goes in mostly cream coloured. It is toasted when it looks like a cashew colour.

Put the mixture into the blender and get it as creamy as you can. Welcome to ghetto tahini. Pour that to the side, no need to wash out the blender.

In the same blender, add the garlic and the chickpeas (If you use canned, this is where we start. Do save some of the can juice). Begin to blend. As you are blending, slowly add tahini oil until you begin to see a smooth consistency. Stop and taste. Add a pinch of salt and then begin to blend again. At this point you can use the chickpea juice to create more creaminess, or you can use more, plain, olive oil. The hummus should be thick, but smooth and not at all liquid-like.