Making hummus

[sawyl]

Yotam Ottolenghi has a piece on hummus on Word of Mouth, including the surprising detail that some people reckon that home-made hummus is more trouble than it's worth. Astonishing. I find that it's a breeze to make, especially if you take a few short cuts, and far nicer than shop-bought.

Here's my standard recipe for a reasonably thick, lemon heavy hummus. Being lazy, I tend to use tinned chickpeas and bottled lemon juice. I've even given up the garlic crusher in favour of a quick initial slicing before allowing the food processor to take care of the puréeing.

• 2 tins or around 500g of cooked chickpeas
• 6 tbs tahini
• 6 tbs olive oil
• juice of 3 lemons (around 8–9 tbs)
• 3–6 cloves of garlic

Drain the chickpeas, slice the garlic and dump into a food processor. Add the tahini, oil and lemon juice. Blitz until smooth, adding more lemon juice if the mixture seems too thick.

Easy.