Creamy Hummus, Restaurant Style
1/4 cup tahini
1/4 cup lemon juice
water, as needed, optional
4 or 5 cloves garlic, minced
1 (24 ounce) can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
salt, to taste
olive oil, for drizzle
parsley, to taste, for garnish
ground cumin, to taste, for garnish
1. Put the tahini and lemon juice into a blender (I use an immersion blender) and blend away until it's frothy, white, and creamy. You can substitute a little water for lemon juice; experiment. This is your sesame cream! (If you added a lot more water and blended well enough, you'd get sesame milk.)
2. Blend garlic into the cream, and add some salt, to taste. This is a basic tahini cream sauce that's actually really good on its own! Take a handful of chickpeas and blend it into the sesame cream until smooth.
3. Continue to blend in chickpeas a little at a time until the cream has thickened, but isn't too thick and is still pale (not the deep yellow of the usual chickpea mash). Add salt, to taste.
4. You won't use all the chickpeas, much less than in many hummus recipes. For the above, I usually use about 1/2 (24 ounce) can's worth. Scoop the hummus onto a plate, put a few whole chickpeas on top, drizzle good olive oil over it, and sprinkle some parsley and/or cumin on top if you like.
That's it! It's best if served at room temperature or slightly warmer.
The secret to good hummus, and the difference between hummus and chickpea mash, is to understand what is really going on with the tahini.What is milk? Milk is generally an emulsion of protein and fat in a water-based liquid. An emulsion is when you mix one liquid into another that don't generally mix, like oil and water when you make salad dressing. They're not dissolving into each other, but the little molecules of one are suspended in the other.
For dairy milk, it's an emulsion of animal protein, fats, lactose, etc. For soy milk and nut milk, it's the same thing, but now it's nut proteins and oils. But in all cases, the emulsion is where the creaminess comes from in "milk". If you have less water, you call it cream (either dairy cream or nut creams).
Tahini is sesame butter, and to make creamy hummus, the secret is to first turn that into sesame cream! To do that, you need to emulsify the tahini in a water based liquid first. This will not happen if you just put everything into a food processor all at once!'
SO HOW'D IT GO?
doubled the recipe & used a whole 15-oz can of chickpeas (might actually use a little more next time, and a tad less garlic). awesome - had been about to head to a restaurant cuz i was craving this, but i had everything on hand and it came out great! and thanks for the emulsion explanation - it really helps! ;)b
This turned out great. IMO, there is NO SUCH THING as too much garlic! I used about 5 cloves grated , but cooked three of them in olive oil until fragrant just to mellow out the taste a bit. So much better than any other hummus attempt I've tried.
woah amazing! definitely my new standard hummus recipe! thanks so much
My blender sucks, so I had a bit of trouble getting everything to blend correctly. I used a whole 15 oz. can of chickpeas, because I thought the tahini and lemon juice was a bit overpowering. I also added a lot of garlic and red pepper, and it turned out great! Thanks for the tips.
my blender sucks too. the whole time i was making this i was griping to my wife that we needed a food processor because our "blender that claims it can also be a pretend food processor" sucks at blending anything thick. if it's on the thin side, it's great. otherwise, it works and works and nothing moves.
i ended up adding water (a little at a time) to encourage my blender to actually work. i also found my tahini and lemon juice to be overpowering until i added the whole fifteen ounce can of beans. i ended up mashing my beans by hand before putting them in my blender to help it out (otherwise i would STILL be blending it!).
we LOVE garlic so i added tons of it! i also added a little olive oil & fresh ground garlic pepper.
i have actually never made hummus before and i was quite pleased with this. now, if only my blender was as good...
I have found that if I'm using canned chickpeas, it's a good idea to drain the chickpeas but retain the liquid. Instead of adding water to the recipe, use the chickpea liquid first as any nutrients that have leached out of the peas will be in the liquid.
LOVE hummus. Can't wait to try the tahini cream method.
I haven't tried this yet, I have never made hummus before and this is the only recipe I've seen that actually make sense, I hope it works out, and I will first try it will less garlic, if I think it could use more I'll add more and whip it up again. I tried a very very good homemade raw hummus/dip made with zucchini you just throw the zucchini in the blender, add tahini garlic, etc. it was really good, but I never made it myself. I'll have to try this. Thanks for the recipe.
ah finally, to know the secret of creamy hummus! thanks!!
turned out great. added a little dill from my garden
My blender sucks, so I had a bit of trouble getting everything to blend correctly. I used a whole 15 oz. can of chickpeas, because I thought the tahini and lemon juice was a bit overpowering. I also added a lot of garlic and red pepper, and it turned out great! Thanks for the tips.
Yummy! I made some minor changes; roasted the garlic first and added a little cumin and chopped fresh parsley into the mix (I grow many of my own herbs and couldn't resist.) This was excellent! Thank you!!! :)>>>
This is my favorite regular hummus recipe! It's so creamy and delicious.
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