Sunday, May 24, 2009

Pinto bean hummus


A couple of weeks ago a Yelp friend had commented on a black bean hummus she had at Cafe Carumba. That spawned a discussion on how Hummus has come to commonly describe bean dips other than the basic Mediterranean fare made with garbanzo beans. Much the same way Tapenade is used for almost any spread containing olives in addition to the original recipe from Provencal, France. So I had some pinto beans in the cupboard and tossed in some stuff to make some dip.

1 cup pinto beans, soaked, cooked
Tahini
Sesame oil
small minced onion
minced garlic
olive oil
small can crushed olives
chili powder
kosher salt
lime juice

Notice I did not mention measurements in many cases. I just sort of tossed stuff in and in a few cases added some more after tasting. I bought real Tahini for this one and am not sure it worked any better than plain sesame oil which I normally have, by itself it tastes awful. I'll see how I like it with a more traditional hummus before I decide whether it is worth having around. I used some really hot chili powder in it and it gives a pleasant after burn but little up front taste, I think I would have been better served using Sriracha. Like many mixed things it improved setting in the fridge. I don't care what fancy name you give it, it's still bean dip. :-)

Normally stuff like this is prepared in a food processor. As you can see by the picture the 1-1/2 cup model I have is not really up to the task. Food processors are not that expensive but I am out of room in my little apartment for cooking toys. Last time I made hummus I used my blender and was not pleased because I would have had to thin it out more than I would have liked to make it really work well. So I stepped back about 4 decades and used a hand held electric mixer. It worked great!





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