Hummus Bi'Tahineh

Hummus is the most recognizable Levantine dish found all around the globe and is served at nearly every Palestinian meal. For the curious, hummus means chick pea in Arabic, so all of the delicious bean dips you can find lining the store shelves today with the name hummus that lack chick peas are a misnomer.

Ingredients

Makes 4 servings

• Dried chick peas
  • 1/4 cup
• Baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon
• Cumin
  • 1 teaspoon
• Fresh lemon juice
  • One large lemon, or about 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• Tahini
  • 1/2 cup
• Fresh garlic
  • 1 or 2 cloves, to your taste
• Paprika
  • Garnish
• Extra virgin olive oil
  • Enough to drizzle over the dish
• Salt
  • To taste

Recipe

1. Add enough water to cover the chick peas, add the baking soda, and let it soak for a 4 to 8 hours until they’re mostly soft.
2. Drain and rinse the chick peas, add them to a pot, and pour enough water in to cover them.
3. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and let it simmer for another hour or so until they are very soft. Skim off any foam that forms and add more water as needed.
4. Drain and rinse the chick peas again.
5. At this point, the chick peas should be soft and the skins should mostly be coming off of them. Keep rinsing them and running them through your hands as you do so to remove as many of the skins as you can.
6. Crush and chop the garlic.
7. Add the garlic, chick peas, tahini, lemon juice, cumin, and salt to a food processor and let it run until everything is very smoothly blended. Scrape down the sides of the processor from time to time to make sure everything is blended.
8. To serve, scoop it all into a bowl and garnish with paprika and olive oil with warm pita on the side.