When boiling chickpeas for the two to three hours it takes them to get soft enough to blend, the stale, sour-smelling steam will, without a doubt, permeate your clothing. It’s something that only really happens when you get about four, 15-gallon pots going at once, but the unmistakable stinky fog that accumulates is something that I have grown to love of the past couple years.
I didn’t think that hummus-making would be a calling of mine, but the experience of providing good food to great customers has been one of the most rewarding things I could ever have imagined doing. The same rules for making your own hummus apply to most cooking endeavors you may come across.
1. Always use fresh ingredients. Pealing and chopping dozens of heads of garlic is one of the most tedious things you could do for an afternoon, but the pre-jarred, pre-pealed, or powdered substitutes don’t even come close taste-wise.
2. It’s okay to spend hours in the kitchen. At some point during a hectic summer, there is no place I would rather be than in my meditative kitchen area with music playing and the windows open, chopping away.
3. When you can, go local. As evidenced throughout the summer at the local markets, people should buy local just because it is what they think they should do, but because it supports local business and usually the closer something is grown or made to you, the fresher and better tasting it will be.
4. Shortcuts never pay off. There were plenty of times when time-saving, but potentially quality compromising ideas came across my mind. “Maybe we could just make enough for our special orders and freeze what we don’t sell.” You want to be proud of what you put out at the end of the day, even if it means more time spent.
5. Food is always best enjoyed with others. Eating, drinking and being merry are all amplified by the presence of friends. As with hummus, all food is better enjoyed with good company.
Teton Hummus won’t be slinging hummus this summer at the People’s Market or Jackson Hole Farmers Market, but hopefully we can pass a few things along, including a recipe or two, to anyone who wants to try hummus making out for themselves at home.
Ingredients
- 2 cups dried garbanzo beans
- 2 cloves chopped garlic
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- 1/3 cup tahini
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 1/2 tablespoons salt to taste
- 1/2 cup cooking water
- 8 strips thick cut pepper bacon, small dice
- 6 medjool dates, small dice
Instructions
- Place chickpeas in container and fill with cold water (beans will absorb a fair amount of water and expand in volume by about 50 percent, so make sure the container is big enough). Soak beans overnight.
- Strain chickpeas and rise throughly, discard soaking water.
- Place chickpeas in stockpot and fill with water.
- Boil chickpeas until soft and skins are easily removed with your fingers (about two hours on a rolling boil).
- In a separate pan, cook the diced bacon on low heat until crispy, drain fat.
- Strain chickpeas, reserving 1/2 cup of cooking liquid.
- Add cooked chickpeas, garlic, tahini, lemon juice, olive oil, and salt into a food processor and blend throughly (this might take multiple batches depending on the size of the processor).
- Add in reserved cooking liquid to get to desired thickness.
- Remove from food processor and place in bowl, stir in bacon and dates with spatula,
- season with addtional salt to taste.
