Butter Hummus

I love hummus but haven’t had it in a while because I used to make it with canned chickpeas which are not soaked and many cans contain BPA and other nasty chemicals. I wanted to learn how to properly soak my chickpeas and cook them myself. A recent visit to Boston pushed me in the right direction to finally try this. My cousin said he went to some restaurant where they had ‘butter hummus’. Being the butter lover that I am, my ears pricked up. Butter hummus?! I tinkered around a bit with the recipe and here are the results – a smooth and truly buttery hummus made with traditionally soaked chickpeas! Amazingly yummy and fairly easy to whip up a batch.

Ingredients

• 2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked overnight with 4 Tbsp liquid whey or lemon juice (where to buy legumes)
• 4 Tbsp butter + 1 Tbsp melted butter for serving
• 3/4 cup cold pressed extra-virgin olive oil (where to buy quality oils)
• 3 Tbsp tahini (where to buy)
• 5 cloves garlic (I used my fermented garlic I had on hand)
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt (where to buy salt)
• 1 Tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
• 3/4 cup chickpea cooking liquid (see below – used to thin out the hummus)

Directions

24 hours before you want to make the hummus, place your dried chickpeas in a bowl and cover with filtered water and the whey or lemon juice. Allow the chickpeas to soak for 24 hours, adding more water to cover as they soak and expand.

After soaking, drain off the liquid and place the chickpeas in a pot of water and bring to a boil (this should take about 15 minutes). Cover and turn them down to a simmer and cook for about 35-45 minutes or until very tender. Drain the chickpeas, reserving 3/4 cup of the cooking liquid and a handful of the chickpeas for frying.

Puree the warm chickpeas, 4 Tbsp butter, garlic, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, cumin and salt and cayenne pepper in a food processor until smooth. Add in some of the cooking liquid as necessary to thin out the hummus – as much as 3/4 cup but you may not need that much.

Heat a cast iron skillet with some ghee and fry the remaining whole chickpeas until golden brown. Drizzle the hummus with the melted butter, top with the chopped parsley and fried chickpeas and serve immediately. This recipe will serve 8-10 people as an appetizer.  You can make this a day ahead and refrigerate the hummus – add the melted butter, parsley and fried chickpeas right before serving.