From my first encounter with houmous (or hummus, however you choose to spell it), I quite liked it. It wasn't a full-on passionate love affair, like my love for yogurt or cereal or broccoli or cumin, but more a pleasant friendship: conventional, functional. The same way friendship sometimes flails with bad time management or cracks under the pressure of envy, so my relationship with houmous would occasionally wobble and falter, and at one point, after a slight tummy bug, we temporarily parted ways for some time.
More than anything else, the hurdle getting in the way of my houmous consumption was a digestion problem inherited from my father before me; my tummy struggles with any sort of fat - dairy, vegetable, nut, and even olive - and so, due to its generous quantity of oil I would be left bloated and belching for hours to come (even low fat houmous has this effect, and that's not nearly as tasty, either): not pretty.
Then I got a blender for Christmas, and my life changed. I experimented with varying quantities of chickpeas, tahini, garlic, lemon and oil until I found what has become one of my favourite lunchtime treats - a nutty, chunky houmous that doesn't leave me bent double!
So I started to experiment with some of my other favourite beans. Until today, nothing was quite so great that it waranted sharing with the world, but now I have it: the perfect butterbean paté! What's more, it's even easier than homemade houmous - it doesn't need a blender, only a fork!
For one tasty lunchtime:
1 small can butterbeans, drained
Half a carrot, peeled
4 radishes
2 tsp tomato purée
Fresh coriander
Salt and pepper
1. Heat the butterbeans through* and then mash them up with a fork
2. Grate the carrot and radishes and add to the beans
3. Add tomato purée, coriander and salt and pepper to taste and mix well
Simple! And great in a pitta! I didn't take a photo, but it looks pretty, too!
*This isn't 100% necessary, but warm beans are easier to mash, and the heat will bring out the flavour of the coriander!
Catherine, you're so cute.
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of making your own hummus...but I love Sabra, and totally pay more for it just because it makes me WANT to eat cucumbers.
And it's neat that you created your own little recipe here! You should take some pictures so we can see the finished product, it sounds so unusual and cool :)