Olwen Anderson's Blog

Hummus dip makes a great healthy snack, particularly if you eat it with carrot or other vegetable sticks rather than biscuits. It’s a high density food, containing good amounts of fibre, protein and good fats. But if you buy a tub of pre-prepared hummus from the supermarket, there's a good chance it will contain preservatives, or unnecessary 'fillers' like breadcrumbs to thicken it. Yuk!

Cook up multiple batches of chick peas at once. Each batch of hummus will use 60g dried chick peas – suggest you soak and cook at least three times this amount.

1. Soak your dried chick peas in water for eight hours
2. Rinse the peas and place in a saucepan with enough water to cover generously.
3. Bring to the boil and simmer for one hour. They should now be soft enough to squash easy between your thumb and finger.
4. Drain, reserving the cooking liquid.
5. Puree the beans. I use a masticating juicer (a Vitalmax) with the nut butter attachment in place. You could use a mortar & pestle instead, or even a masher. This is the messy part of the process, and the reason why you're cooking up a large batch.
6. Divide the pureed beans into portions by weight. (i.e if you boiled three times the quantity of chick peas, divide the mixture into three portions). Put the portions in individual tubs in your freezer and keep one to make up a fresh batch now.
7. Add 75ml (1/3 cup) tahini, preferably unhulled (more calcium!).
8. Add one large garlic clove, well crushed.
9. Add the juice of one large lemon, plus the leftover fruit pulp.
10. Add one teaspoon extra virgin olive oil.
11. Stir to mix, adding the reserved cooking liquid to create the dip consistency you want. If you have pureed the chick peas properly in step 5, the consistency will be smooth. If not, you may have to use a blender.
12. Salt to taste, add more lemon juice if you like.
13. Divide your dip mixture into 3 or 4 portion-sized containers and refrigerate. They will easily last 3 or 4 days.

Next time you want to make hummus, just retrieve another tub of pureed chick peas from the freezer, thaw, and start again at step 7.

Easy? How did you go with the process – let us know by leaving your comment below.