Hummus, a spread made with tinned chickpeas

I could get away with hummus for a late breakfast today. I’m preparing for a training session I’m running on Monday, so my computer’s my only company for the first part of the day. I wouldn’t recommend it before a meeting or if you work in an open-plan office. The garlic really makes its presence felt, and your colleagues might never forgive you.

I first had hummus in Beirut. Sadly, not the real Beirut, but the bar of that name on Poznańska Street in Warsaw. I really took to it. I wondered what went into it, and eventually, back when I still worked with Kryfka (yes, the Kryfka who was going to give us cocktail recipes and now says she hasn’t got time 🙁 ), she told me I needed tahini. I did already know about the chickpeas. Luckily sesame paste is easy enough to buy these days, so that’s how my own adventure with this distinctive Arab dish began.

Hummus is incredibly simple to make, ridiculously so, in fact. I even thought about putting it in the “most primitive” category, but held off in case anyone accused me of discrimination.

Speaking of Beirut, last year Jacek and I were working up to going there for a weekend, but somehow it all fizzled out. I hope we get back to that plan. I’ve managed to explore a fair chunk of the world already, but the Middle East has yet to lay eyes on me. Pity.

In the meantime, writing inspiration being rather thin on the ground (it happens, unfortunately), I recommend this Arab dish, especially in the “scorching” frost outside. Plenty of garlic and vitamin C (from the lime, I hope) will spare you a cold.

This version of hummus is pretty classic in my book. Just the basic ingredients, in other words. Of course you can experiment from there, adding hot chillies, for instance. I also like it with fresh parsley (sadly I didn’t have any handy today). Give it a try.

At a glance: 

Prep time: 5 minutes

Serves: 2

How many calories? What do you think? And if you don’t feel like thinking, look it up on Wikipedia

Ingredients for classic hummus:

• a tin of chickpeas (400 grams, of which 280 grams are chickpeas)
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 2 teaspoons of tahini (that’s sesame paste, and it looks like this)
• 1.5 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 tablespoons of lime juice (I used bottled)
• a teaspoon of ground black pepper
• a pinch of ground hot paprika
• two pinches of salt

Method (get your blender ready or forget it):

This really is simple. You barely even need to concentrate. It’s easiest to get all your ingredients ready and just drop them into the container you’ll blend them in.

I got all the ingredients ready (which amounted to peeling the garlic and draining the chickpeas, though I saved the chickpea liquid in a glass).

Then I put everything into a tall plastic food container. I blended it thoroughly into a smooth paste. I had a taste, and although the consistency was pretty good it seemed a little dry, so I poured in a tablespoon and a half of the chickpea liquid (the stuff the chickpeas came in, straight from the tin) and blended it again. That’s it. I served myself some with a baguette and sweet red pepper. Enjoy!