How To: Make Hummus

There was a stall in One Utama's Food Republic that served decent middle east food but I think they have closed down some time back. Hadramawt was running some deals on GroupOn but they either require reservation or it's for at least two pax. Things like that make me sad because it is pathetic to book for one person and as much as I try to eat (at one sitting), I am too self conscious to stuff myself silly knowing some people are looking at me pitifully. My paranoia knows no bound like my laziness.  But still, it would be nice to try more Arab food. Al-Diwan is not bad but it's relatively pricey, considering that there's no pork.

Few years back, my sister made hummus as starters and it stuck in my memory, its creaminess and muted savory flavors. The idea blossomed and soon enough, I decided to give it a go. 

Tahini is one of its key ingredient. You could buy the ready made stuff. I opted to make them from scratch because tahini paste isn't exactly widely available. Chances are, they are imported and it's going to cost a bomb. In essence, it is just roasted sesame seed. That's not so difficult.

You could roast it over a stove on a non stick pan. I decided to pop it in my oven to bake. Forgetting that my oven has a tendency to overheat that I left it in for too long that it got slightly over roasted. fml.

Put the sesame seed into a blender and pulse it into fine. Slowly add in the olive oil and further mix it.

This is what you'll end up with. Because my seeds were somewhat over roasted, you could taste it in the resulting paste. I hope my actual seeds are not over roasted from not being used.

Lets start assembling the hummus before I disgust you any further.  Actually, I think my cooking does that rather well.

Boiled chick peas. To be honest, after boiling them in a pot of water, they were ultra soft and I was almost tempted to just stop there and munch away. They were really good especially when fresh out of the pot.

Add the paste together with the peas into the blender and blitz away. Add olive oil along way until it reaches the desired consistency.

Natural selection almost took place when I absentmindedly took the chopper apart to lick the chopped peas away from the blade.
Though come to think of it, that just may work in my favor. A friend once commented that from afar, I looked like a nice decent girl that he would hit on. But once I open my mouth......

Part of my Tesco on-sale expiring garlic herb bread. I toasted it in the microwave and there was so much oil that two towelettes could soak it up o.O But the bread was quite nice.

Isn't this nice?? Quite proud of this lunch setup. The baby romaine lettuce was really fresh. I bought a box of raisins as part of my diet snack but these buggers are not that healthy as it's just dried up grapes and is high in sugar content. Generally, they are good for snacks but really, who watches how much snack they take? Before you know it, you've downed the entire box like how I just ate half a tub of Pringles after my dinner tonight. fml.

The hummus ended up being a little too dry. While it isn't exactly bland, the raisins really made it more bearable. I failed in making hummus :(