Tonight’s post is in honour of a dear friend who I lived with for a couple of years and is currently living in Jordan. I miss her and talking to her briefly over Facebook messenger tonight made me nostalgic about the good times we shared as single gals in a share house. Such Fun! Life has moved on for both of us. We’re both married and lives seem to be going in different directions. How important it is to cherish the moments we have with people as we don’t know how long we’ll have them in our lives for!

She shared some foods she’s been trying in Jordan…and top of her list was hummus. ‘Smooth like Jazz’ she said. Coincidentally, my next recipe share for this blog was actually going to be hummus. Other foods she listed off were muttabel (egglant, tahini and labne), mansaf (a local dish of slow cooked lamb with buttery rice and a reconstituted yoghurt and toasted almonds), magloobeh/maqloobah (toasted rice, fried potato, fried eggplant and spiced chicken all cooked together), mussakhan (sumac chicken and rice with bread) and a dessert called knafeh. These were all new to me. So many things to explore and discover. She’s recommended a book to buy so it’s on the list of things to research.

Hummus. Australians seem to have a great love of hummus and I love it too. But why don’t we make it ourselves? It can be a bit time-consuming but it’s not difficult. Yes, it can take a day or two to make as you need to soak the chickpeas (no canned chickpeas) and you can go the full experience of making your own tahini paste too which is great. I used this Tahini paste recipe.

Our hummus recipe share is from The Great Australian Cookbook copyright © Sharon and Carol Salloum, Almond Bar. The book can be purchased from Dymocks or Allen and Unwin. The recipe is republished here with permission from the publishers.

Ingredients

• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 cup (200g) dried chickpeas
• 1/2 cup (140g) hulled tahini
• juice of 2 lemons
• 1 small clove garlic, crushed
• 1/2 tsp salt flakes, or to taste
• extra virgin olive oil and sweet paprika to garnish

Method:

Dissolve the bicarbonate of soda in a large bowl of water, add the chickpeas and soak overnight. Rinse and clean.

Place the chickpeas in a medium-sized saucepan and cover generously with water (the water should be double the amount of chickpeas). Cook over a high heat. Once the water starts to boil, reduce the heat to love and remove any scum that may have appeared on the surface. Cook for about 40 minutes, or until the chickpeas are tender and can be crushed between two fingers. Drain and allow to cool.

place the cooled chickpeas in a food processor and blend until as smooth as possible. You may need to add a couple of splashes of water to bring the chickpeas together if they start sticking to the side of the processor. Add the tahini, lemon juice, garlic and salt, and blend until well combined.

At this point the dip will become quite thick and difficult to blend. Gradually add enough water to thin it out to a smooth paste – start with 2 tablespoons and take it from there. Don’t add too much, or it will turn into a sauce. Taste and add more salt if preferred.

Transfer the hummus to a shallow bowl and finish with a drizzle of olive oil and sprinkling of sweet paprika. Serve with Middle easter or your choice of bread.

Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to four days.