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I work in a restaurant that serves this and many other Middle eastern items... Hummus, baba ganoush, tabouli 2# chickpeas cleaned then cooked and set out on sheet pan to cool..(you could cheat and get canned if you want to be lazy) 1/5 cup of tahini or 5 Tbs Heavy Pinch of Kosher Salt 1oz by weight or 5 tsp of fresh garlic chopped Squeeze of like a quarter of lemon juice 1/3 cup of Olive Oil Put into food processor to puree add water as needed When finished add some Extra Virgin Olive Oil and sprinkle Sumac.. You can eat with fresh Naan, Crostinis, Pita bread, or pita chips.. it is also good with fresh romaine... I did convert the big recipe that I have from the restaurant on my computer on the fly and I have had some drinks so I apologize if the math is 100% but it should still be a good tasting hummus.
I'll just share a few of my thoughts on this one: All of the store-bought hummus I ate in the US did not taste like hummus. Store bought Israeli brands are way better, but nothing compared to the real thing. Most canned chick-peas in the US are more bitter than the ones in the Mid East. The hummus made with them never tastes right (to me). What hummus I had that WAS good in the US was from a few good Lebanese restaurants in LA. I never tried it in Houston. Hummus in the Mid-east is a different story and the range of taste is pretty broad. It's like comparing BBQ in Texas to other places. It's not as good in Egypt as it is in Israel & the best hummus in Israel is made by Arabs, be they from Lebanon, Jaffa or Abu Ghosh...and everyone does it differently. They all operate the same way: they open early in the morning after making it fresh and close when they run out. The good places can close as early as 1 in the afternoon and are packed (furthering the BBQ analogy). The "only" way to eat it is with torn pieces of fresh pita, pieces of a quartered onion or a fork. Since all that hummus consumption means eating a ton of white flour that is worse for the belly than a beer binge, I usually opt of the latter two and use half a pita or less to clean the bowl. My favorite is masabacha, which has whole pieces of chickpeas mixed in it and usually with a hard-boiled egg cut up and thrown in it. A lot of people mix it with ful (a sort of bean paste). Likewise, everyone has their preferred place, and a discussion can turn into a lively argument. In Tel Aviv a lot of people like the style made by Yemenite Jews, but the most popular (and I agree) is a place in Jaffa called Abu Hasan. Everyone in the country knows it. I don't know what they do that's so different, but the consistency and flavor is the best. I sometimes go and buy it to go by the quart.
