Recipes/Hummus

Put "some" uncooked (dry) chickpeas in a pot (enough to cover the bottom of the pot, or more if you want more -- quantities are not too important). Rinse them, and cover with water so there is at least as much water above them as there are chickpeas. That is, if you have a 1cm layer of chickpeas, put in 2cm of water. Bring to a boil and cover the pot, turn off the heat and let them sit an hour, covered.

Get your food-processor out, and put the chickpeas in (do not get rid of the cooking water). Add a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of cumin, juice of half a lemon, and enough of the cooking water so that when you turn on the food-processor, you end up with a moist coarse paste (not a soup, and not dry). Add a couple cloves of garlic, and some raw tehina (to taste), as well as a few tablespoons of olive oil. Let the processor grind 'em up for a couple minutes, stopping every so often to push escaping chickpeas back into the soon-to-be-yummy mixture.

Now is the critical step: correcting the flavor. Mix the mixture around with your spatula, and take a taste. Add: salt, garlic, lemon juice or tehina as you think the mixture needs. Is the mixture too thick? Add more cooking water. Too loose? Well, not much you can do about that! Why did you put so much water in, didn't I tell you to be careful?!? Anyway, now you have got the taste the way you want it, continue processing until the texture is how you want it. Remember, the mixture will thicken a bit as it sits; so better to be a little bit looser than you ultimately want it.

Your homemade hummus will be coarser-grained than the commercial kind, but you won't have any unknown or unpronounceable ingredients in it. Goes well with techina. Enjoy!