It seems last week a routine test discovered salmonella in Marks & Spenser’s reduced fat houmous. Obviously it has been recalled and they withdrew their normal houmous as an ‘extreme precaution’. It turns out that Bakkavor, the Icelandic manufacturer also produces houmous for Tesco, Sainsburys, Co-op, Somerfield, and Waitrose and thus all of these store brands have been recalled. Now when you eat as much houmous as I do, a recall of this magnitude makes life interesting. Luckily a year ago Dan and I began attempting to duplicate the English Houmous recipe. Like many ethnic foods, what we eat here doesn’t quite follow the traditional recipes. Though it may not be exact, this may help satisfy your houmous cravings in this national crisis.
English Supermarket Houmous
English houmous is creamy and lacks the olive flavour of traditional houmous, and due to variations garlic should be adjusted to taste.
250g dried garbanzo beans (or 2 cans)
1/2 cup sunflower oil
1/2 cup water, retain from cooking
1/2 cup tahini
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/3 tsp salt
1/3 tsp paprika
1 garlic clove
1. Night before- If using dried peas bring the peas to a boil in 5 cups of water. Boil for three minutes, then remove from heat and cover. Leave overnight.
2. Drain and rinse the peas (both dried & canned) in batches and place on a paper towel. Run each batch over with a rolling pin. Then remove any loose skins.
3. Once the skins are removed, place in pressure cooker with 5 cups of water. Bring to pressure and cook for 25 minutes and let pressure drop naturally.
4. Drain the chickpeas, but make sure to retain a 1/2 cup of cooking water.
5. Pour all the chickpeas in the food processor and add all the other ingredients. You want to blend them for about 2 minutes. The longer you blend it the smoother it is. It goes very creamy when you've got it right.
6. The mixture will be a bit runny, but it firms up as it cools.
And to make the green spinach houmous shown:
Remove about half the houmous (500-600 grams) from the food processor. Then to the remaining houmous add the following and blend again until even.
5 ounces frozen spinach (thaw before blending)
1 tablespoon chopped onions
1 1/2 teaspoons dried parsley