La Platicona Habla: Tastes, Passions and Pursuits

I absolutely adore chickpeas, whether in a soup or on a salad, the texture and matte flavor is a wonderful addition to your legume family. Chickpeas are native to southwest Asia and have been cultivated for over 9,000 years. They are unique in the legume family for being nearly 5% oil by weight, as opposed to 1-2%. Chickpeas, a.k.a. garbanzo beans, form a main staple in India where the legume is hulled and split to make chana dal, a ground flour for pakoras, papadums, and fried goods. If you eat at Graze restaurant in Albuquerque, the chef makes these great chickpea french fries by molding chickpea flour into little french fry shaped sticks and lightly frying them.

So anyways, I decided to whip up a batch of fresh hummus for some dinner guests last week and it turned out marvelous. Hummus is basically a chickpea spread that is flavored with salt, lemon, parsley, and olive oil. It is a great lunch spread for vegetarian sandwiches, and makes a good appetizer for a dinner, and finger food for a cocktail party.

You will need:
- 2 cans of garbanzo beans, drained
- 3 cloves of minced garlic
- handful of chopped flat leafed italian parsley
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1/2 c of olive oil
- 1 tsp of kosher salt
- pepper to taste

Step One: In a food processor (if using a blender, add 1 can of beans, and slowly add the second so as not to over fill the blender container), combine the beans, garlic, parsley, pepper, and salt. Roughly blend.

Step Two: Add lemon juice and turn blender on high. Through the hole in the top of the blender or the food processor, slowly drizzle in the 1/2 c of olive oil, adding more if necessary. The consistency should be that of a bean dip, and should not be runny. You can experiment with flavors by adding a handful of roasted red peppers or kalamata olives.

Scrape the dip out of the processor or blender and serve in a bowl; drizzle the hummus with olive oil. Eat hummus with toasted pita bread (you can heat it in the oven for a few minutes), a side of olives and peppers goes well with this.

Labels: garbanzo beans, Italian parsley, lemon, olive oil