Experimenting with Hummus

Yesterday finally we could try out our new woodburning stove for the very first time, so I thought we could have a nice cosy evening with dips.

But it has to be healthy, said Lundulph.

So I suggested I make some hummus and some guacamole and we dip vegetables and bread in them. Unfortunately I forgot to write down what veggies to buy and so completely forgot about them - so we only had cucumber and cauliflower to dip. Carrot and pepper would have been nice too, though.

Thus, on Thursday, I started making a new batch of bread.

Ingredients
963 g starter that has been fed and has grown for 4 h
30 g coarse oat bran
105 g wholemeal flour
300 g super strong white flour
200 g water
25 g salt
olive oil for greasing the baking tin

Method

1. Mix together all ingredients except the salt and work to develop gluten and get an elastic dough.
2. Towards the end, add the salt carefully and incorporate well.
3. Cover the bowl with cling film and let rise until double in size.
4. Grease a roasting tin (21 x 31 cm) with olive oil.
5. Cut up the dough into 20 equal pieces, shape into balls and place in the roasting tin.
6. Brush with more olive oil, cover with cling film and let proof for 15 h.
7. Bake at 200 degrees C for 1 h. Cover with aluminium foil 25 minutes into the baking, so they don't burn.
8. Remove from the oven and the roasting tin onto a cooling rack.

The dough was a bit stiffer than I had intended, but the long proofing did wonders and it baked very nicely - I quite fancied a bread that can easily be broken up into pieces.

After the bread was done, I made the hummus, so that it would have some resting time in the fridge and allow the flavours to develop. The recipe is my original one, but with adjustments.

Ingredients
2 cans of chick peas (400 g each)
120 ml of the liquid
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp tahini paste
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Put everything in a blender and process until smooth. Don't use too much salt if the hummus will be used as a dip for crisps or tortilla chips.

I divided up the hummous in two equal parts and added 2 tsp sweet paprika and 1 tsp cajun pepper to one of them. This made it go a bit orange and gave it a very nice heat kick. The paprika was a bit too subtle, so I will try harissa next time.

The remaining half was divided into four smaller parts (about 0.75 dl each):

Part 1 got 1 tsp ground cumin powder. This was a bit too much, but on the whole was OK. Worked better with the bread, than the vegetables.

Part 2 got 0.5 tsp Dijon mustard. This I really liked, it was very toned down, but came through very well with cucumber and cauliflower. Lundulph doesn't like mustard, so I got to keep almost all of it.

Part 3 got 1 tsp Veeraswamy Gujarat Masala paste. This was rather interesting - this hummus on its own was way too sweet tasting, but combined with cucumber, it resulted in an amazing flavour sensation. Not nice with the bread at all.

Part 4 got 1 tsp of Branston original pickle. Now I think Lundulph was most surprised about this one - but even on its own, the hummus tasted very nice and with bread, it was super. The chick peas worked to neutralise the sweetness and acidity of the pickle a little and it just worked perfectly together.

Thus we stayed up to way past midnight and Lundulph put away most of the bread and we were both quite stuffed. This will definitely be worth repeating, with a greater selection of vegetables to dip and larger amounts of the lovely hummus.

I did also make guacamole, but it didn't really stand a chance next to the hummuses.