Hummus

Greek food is simply amazing! With their lovely kebabs, pita breads and off course the star of the show - HUMMUS!! I'm so crazy for this thing that I will have it on the side with literally anything! Pita chips, regular chips, celery, roti, even plain bread :D So now that you know how much I love this dish, why not learn how to make it. And what makes it even more exciting is, we are learning to make it in different flavors by just adding few simple ingredients!!

Ingredients:

For regular flavor:

Chick peas,soaked overnight and cooked - 1 cup (boiled version) for each type of flavor

Olive Oil - 1/4 cup

Garlic - 5-6 cloves (adjust to your taste)

Lemon juice - 2-3 tb sp

Roasted Sesame seeds - 1/4 cup

Salt  - to taste

For different flavors:

Just add foll. to above mix,

Garden fresh Hummus:

Coriander leaves - 1/2 a bunch

Mint leaves - 1 sprig (optional)

Green chilies - 2-3 (adjust to your taste)

Desi twist Hummus:

Roasted Cumin seeds and coriander seeds, powdered - 1 n 1/2 tb sp

Red chili powder - 1-2 t sp or Kashmiri Red chilies - 2-3 (adjust to your taste)

Method:

- Add the sesame seeds, salt, lemon juice and garlic in the blender and with very little water, make a fine paste.

- Add rest of the ingredients and run the blender till everything combines well and is a smooth paste. This will make the regular hummus.

- For the different flavors, just add coriander, mint leaves and green chilies to get the (what I am calling) Garden fresh version :)

- For Desi Twist version, just add Cumin and Coriander seeds powder and red chili powder/karshmiri red chilies.

- Swirl some olive oil on top and serve with Pita bread/ Pita chips

Tips:

- Chickpeas are available in cans too. You can use them.

- You can also use Tahini sauce ie sesame paste instead of just sesame seeds.

- You can make so many versions of this like using paprika instead of red chili powder, or even roasted red bell peppers. 

- I buy pita bread or whole grain tortillas, cut them into chip size pieces, spray them with cooking oil and bake to get nice, guilt free pita chips!

Healthy Twist:

- All ingredients are healthy in this dish, just observe portion control and stay away from fried chips, use baked pita chips instead.