About to try making Houmous

[TheSkiingGardener]

Have got all the ingredients arriving shortly. Any tips and how long does the homemade stuff keep for?

a little water also helps if it is too thick. sprinkle some cayenne pepper on top for extra zing.

Agree with LadyGrace - with the quantities of seasoning that you'll find in most recipes, you'll wonder what the hell the brown goo is in the bowl that tastes of mushed nothing.

Yes to using water if it is too thick (rather than more olive oil). A roasted red pepper is a nice addition too.

Cummin is a good addition. Store it in several containers if you want to keep it and thatway the surplus will not have been visited ifyswim. Untouched it will keep a good week or more.

I've tried twice and both times it has been crap! Let me know the recipe if yours works out well!

Don't use canned chickpeas! They have not been cooked for long enough and you will get nasty, gritty hummus. Soak and cook your own chickpeas (much cheaper too!) and reserve the cooking liquid to mix into the hummus to get that really creamy texture. And LOTS of lemon juice.

The lovely Felicity Cloak has it just about spot on here.

It will keep a week or so. Or about 15 minutes if I'm in the vicinity with some carrot sticks and a glass of wine :)

Add cumin & nigella lawson's trick of greek yoghurt, lots of lemon

Wow, lots of advice. Thank you. Will go with lots of lemon juice. Don't want to push the salt as part of the reason for making my own is because DS (1) loves it so much. Love red pepper in it or lemon and coriander.

Have ordered the raw chickpeas so will cook and reserve liquid too.

If you are using canned chickpeas, then first rinse. Then drop the chickpeas into boiling salted water and cook for 5 minutes.

AS some other posters mentioned, cumin is a lovely addition. I roast cumin seeds on a pan and then grind them. Nice smokey flavour, as compared to store bought cumin powder.

I don't use a blender for the chickpeas, but use a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon. I love the grainy texture

If you make it using just water to help loosen it up you can freeze it in small containers. Just stir in some olive oil when defrosted before serving. Chili jam or caramelised onions are also good additional flavourings

Let us.know how you get on cos I have failed several.times, not perfected it yet as I made tonnes of rubbish hoummus and got fed up of eating all the failures. Agree that you need loads more lemon and oil than any recipe states. I was far more successful with canned chck peas. The soaked ones I simmered for hours and they still didn't blend to creamy, just gritty.

I love mine and it's not too oily. I use 1 can of brown chickpeas (kala chana) drained but reserving about 3 tbsps of the canning water and chuck that in a blender with 1 tbsp tahini, 1 tbsp olive oil, 2 tbsp lemon juice plenty of pepper, salt, garlic and usually about 2 tsp of harissa. Whizz it up. Try not to eat in one sitting.