I have been hankering for hummus for some time now. I love Middle Eastern food. And, as much as we LOVE Indian food, it does get a bit monotonous, as Indians in general eat Indian food three times a day.
So, I have been trying to find hummus to buy (Empire Store not in stock they said, but who knows if they really carry it). Failing that, I have also been hunting for tahini, for as many of you have pointed out, I COULD make hummus myself . No tahini either.
So today I took the bull by the horns – checked Allrecipes.com and set off to the store for sesame seeds, olive oil and lemons. Well, I got the first two but the Departmental Stores don’t have produce. As luck would have it, a vegetable cart cum wala (they use the CUM a lot here) was on our street as I approached home, so I bought ½ kg. of nemu (lemons) from him. Done!
Indian lemons are yellow, small and round. There are also sweet limes, which are green, but the size of an orange, and I would say not as flavourful as the lemons. These are used to make sweet lime soda, using mineral water or soda water and served either salty or sweet. Salty lassies, salty sweet lime, salty sugar cane juice (put through a ringer at the side of the road) are common and you actually have to move fast if you want them to “hold the salt”. I guess this has to do with the amount of salts people lose by sweating here.
My sister asked if it is still hot here. Yes. I went out onto the porch a moment ago because I heard a mystifying bird across the street. Couldn’t see the pesky bird and the heat was too intense to stay out there. My iPhone says 33C degrees but feels like 38C.
Back to hummus. I toasted the sesame seeds a little bit first on a roti griddle, and put the chickpeas (channa, here) on the stove to come to a boil then set them aside until Milo got up here to pressure cook them. (I am afraid of pressure cookers – call me a sissy!).
Milo had to sort through the warm chickpeas to pluck out the ones with a weevil inside (picky, picky, picky) and then likewise the toasted sesame seeds to remove what I had taken to be black seeds but which were teensy insects. I said the weevils were poached and the little black thingies were roasted but still she sorted through until satisfied.
The Mixi is a staple in the Indian kitchen as it can grind up the dry stuff but also whirr up the tomatoes, onions, garlic etc. to make the gravies. The Mixi in this house has three container sizes. Yowsah!
Anyway, I got Milo to make the chickpeas quite soft, but still it took a long time, and all the chickpea water, a 1/4 cup of lemon juice and a good bit of my tiny olive oil – to get this stuff smooth. Hmmm… more salt! And finally packed away in two jars. Very tasty – IF labour intensive.
I food processor – with its wide opening – is a much better appliance for this job, BTW.
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