Skip to main content

Green Chile Hummus

A couple of days ago, I bought a couple of bags of lentils and a lemon at our local supermarket. The cashier asked me if I use lemon in my lentils, and actually, I sometimes do, but I told her that the lemon was for my hummus. She asked me what that was, as she had never heard of such a thing. And since the mission of this blog is to introduce local folks to foods unfamiliar to them, I am going to talk about hummus, and share the best hummus recipe ever.

Hummus is a delicious Middle Eastern appetizer, a healthy and immensely flavorful dip that will make you ashamed that you ever served the ranch dressing or onion soup mix sour cream dips to people you actually like. Hummus is a puree of garbanzo beans, tahini (sesame seed paste)garlic and lemon juice. Healthy and pure heaven in your mouth.

But being me, I was recently making hummus for a party and I asked myself, "How could I make this even better, and maybe put a New Mexico spin on it?" I did so by adding locally grown, roasted green chiles. And the combimation of flavors is perfect.

So here's how it goes.

INGREDIENTS:

1 15 oz can garbanzo beans
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
three or four large roasted green New Mexico chiles (about a half cup)
3 large peeled garlic cloves
3 TBS tahini
1/2 tsp ground cumin
juice of one lemon

Put it in a blender and puree it. If it is too thick to puree, which may happen, slowly add just enough water to free the blades. No more than a half cup of water should be needed, but if you don't need it, don't add it. Blend until it is a smooth paste. Taste, and adjust salt and seasonings. Put it in a bowl, garnish with a sprinkle of powdered red chile or paprika and if you like, some kalamata olives, and let it set in the fridge for an hour or two for the flavors to marry.

That's it. Did you think this would be difficult?

Oh, and about the lemon in the lentils. When I lived in Dearborn, MI, there were fabulous Middle Eastern restaurants there. One of them used to make this incredible lentil soup, and we talked with the chef-owner about how she made it. She took the lamb bones left over from making kibbee, used them as the base for a stock, added lentils, simmered until they were soft, seasoned with ground coriander and cumin, and then pureed the soup until smooth. Served with a wedge of fresh lemon to squeeze into it, this soup is absolutely delectable. Maybe I'll post an actual recipe for it another day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chicos and Beans!

Chicos and Beans, Ese! They go together like Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. But what ARE they, and why are they so good? Chicos are as far as I know an ingredient peculiar to northeastern New Mexico. Chicos are sweet corn which is roasted in an outdoor wood-fired adobe oven called an Horno (pronounced or-no, as rhyming with “porno,” but don't make that association with the older generation.) The result is that the corn is preserved, but it keeps its sweetness and the sugars in the corn are caramelized, resulting in a wonderful, distinctive flavor. It is best to buy them from someone who has roasted them, as one never really knows how old the ones in the stores may be. Just like beans, if they are more than a year old, you have to cook them forever to make them tender. The classic winter repast of chicos and beans is about the sweetness of the ingredients and how they harmonize with each other. The chicos provide the sweetness of roasted corn, the smoked ham hocks provide the swe...
3 comments
Read more

Oregano de la Sierra

One of the culinary herbs peculiar to this region is Oregano de la Sierra. It is used in place of oregano in the local cuisine. It is not oregano. The latin name for this plant is Monarda Menthefolium, and it is a variety of bee balm. It does have a flavor reminiscent of oregano with a bit of mint. It is a beautiful plant. It is normally foraged in the mountainous areas, hence its name, which translates as "oregano of the mountains."Those who enjoy word play will note that the word "oregano" itself derives from the Greek "ganos" meaning brightness or ornament, and "oros" meaning mountains. So cross-culturally, "oregano de la sierra" means "ornament of the mountains of the mountains." The photo at right is of oregano de la sierra growing in my back yard. It is drought-hardy and likes filtered shade. As you may guess, being a bee balm, bees love it, so it doesn't just feed you, it feeds our little friends as well. If you wan...
Post a Comment
Read more

Machaca

OK, the recipe I will share with you is NOT the original, real deal machaca. In common parlance, machaca has come to be a reference to shredded beef cooked in the Mexican style. It is similar to the Cuban dish, ropa vieja (old rags, a reference to the appearance of shredded beef.) The original machaca was more of a reconstituted beef jerky. In rural Mexico, there weren't any refrigerators back in the day. So beef would often be preserved by drying. Slabs of the stuff would be sprinkled with lime juice, salted, and hung out to dry in the hot sun and wind. When completely dried, the beef would, texturally, have more in common with a wood plank than with something you would eat. So the cook would grab a machaca, a fist size rock, and the dried beef would then be machacado, that is, literally, beaten, pummeled, smashed, until the fibers of meat would seperate and the resulting fluff would be cooked with tomatoes, onions, chiles, etc, and sometimes scrambled up with eggs. If y...
Post a Comment
Read more