🌶 [ENG] Perfectly smooth hummus + homemade tahini paste!

Creamy, tempting, healthy and most importantly ... simple to prepare! See for yourself! :)

Today I have a recipe for another dish, which I was prepared for our Greek dinner - perfectly smooth hummus!

Although the dish comes from the Levant countries, it has spread throughout the Mediterranean.
I met it on the Greek side of Cyprus for the first time and then in the form of a fava paste (with peas) in Greece.
The first one was prepared based on chickpeas and the second one was marrowfat. Both were different, both delicious, but I was more enchanted by the Cypriot one, and that's how it's done.

INGREDIENTS

• 250g of dry chickpeas
• 50g sesame seeds
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil (from the first pressing)
• salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

1. Pour the chickpeas in cold water to a height of about 10 cm above the level of beans and leave to soak for the night. Then pour it over to the pot with the liquid from soaking, add salt, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook under cover for about an hour. If the peas absorb water, pour it little more.
   IMPORTANT - after cooking, do not pour out the liquid because we will need it later.

2. Meantime we’ll prepare Tahini paste! Heat the pan over medium heat and add sesame seeds, then roast them for a few minutes until they turns golden. Mix quite often, if their will burn they will become bitter and inedible.

3. Pour roasted seeds into a tall container of blender or shredder and patiently blend. At first the consistency will be quite dry and it may go a bit reluctantly, but after a few minutes, when the sesame oil is released, it should go smoothly. If you want to speed up the smooth mass, you can add 2 tablespoons of olive oil.

4. Put a drained chickpeas into a large bowl, add about 100 ml of water from cooking and blend thoroughly. Add tahini paste, lemon juice, olive oil, garlic pressed through the press and continue blending. Add a more water until a smooth, creamy consistency is obtained. At the end, season with salt, a little pepper and its ready!

The classic, basic hummus is ready, but we can use some magic and turn up its taste!
We can add kumin, hot pepper powder, chopped olives, chilli peppers or parsley to it. Personally, I love it in the version with cumin, but often I put away a small portion and experiment with different spices - I recommend it to you too! :)

Put the hummus in a bowl, serve with olive oil in the company of bread - I like the classic pita bread the most (the recipe I will publish soon), but other bread also will work great.

I recommend you try hummus also in the breakfast version on a sandwich with avocado, hard-boiled egg and chives - it’s delicious! :)

I hope you will prepare hummus at home because it contains a lot of nutritional value! You will find in it a healthy, vegetable fats, protein, magnesium, calcium, iron or vitamin A.

If you like this recipe or photos leave me an upvote or comment below!
Follow my blog too because soon there will be recipes for other Greek delicacies! :)

I wish you a magical day!
Foodini

Ps.
Im still improving my English, so please excuse me for some mistakes.
If something is unclear then please let me know in a comment, we will figure it out somehow. :)