The Levant and Anatolia · Volume 03, The Pestle, the Pantry and the Mezze Table
Hummus Bi Tahina
Lebanon and shared across the Levant
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- 8 sources cited
Hummus bi tahina is chickpeas with tahini. Here the chickpeas are cooked soft and peeled, the garlic is rested in lemon juice, and the oil is streamed in with the blender running until the purée turns pale and silky.
As tradition built it
Serves 6 to 8 as part of a mezze spread. About 1 hour from cooked chickpeas; dried ones need soaking the night before and a longer simmer.
Ingredients
- 400g cooked chickpeas, skins removed
- 1½ lemons, juiced, or to taste
- 1 garlic clove
- to taste salt
- to taste ground cumin
- 5 tbsp good tahini, and more to taste
- as needed olive oil, streamed in while blending
- for garnish olive oil, to finish
- for garnish paprika or Aleppo pepper, to dust
Method
- Cook the chickpeas until they are genuinely soft, close to falling apart, then remove the skins by rubbing them between your palms under water; this step does more for the final texture than any other.
- Blend the garlic with the lemon juice and salt, and let it rest for 10 minutes to mellow the raw garlic's sharpness.
- Blend the chickpeas with the garlic-lemon mixture, a little cumin and the tahini until smooth.
- With the blender still running, stream in olive oil slowly until the hummus turns pale, light and genuinely silky rather than merely smooth.
- Finish with a pool of olive oil and a dusting of paprika or Aleppo pepper.
What a modern chef changes
The emulsion sequence as the whole dish
Rung 4
Method
- Do not skip the ten-minute garlic rest, since raw, unrested garlic blended straight into the purée gives a harsh, lingering bite that a good hummus should not have.
- Add the tahini before the final oil, never after, so the tahini's own fat has time to disperse through the purée before any additional oil is introduced.
- Stream, never pour, the final oil, with the blender running continuously, exactly as Rung 4 describes; this single step is the difference between a hummus that merely tastes right and one that has the correct silky, aerated texture.