The humble chickpea and pita bread
Hummus and pita bread. A typical duo at all Middle Eastern homes, and something a good Kurdish girl (or boy), much like myself, should try to always have handy in the kitchen.
I like to make homemade pitas and hummus, so keeping the constant flow week to week is difficult, because the pitas get inhaled within two days, and I cannot keep up with the production. However, I like to try and make it every couple of weeks. It is a satisfying bread, a simple snack, and versatile. Paired with hummus, you are on the right path.
Let's talk about the humble chickpea though, and it's counterpart, ground sesame i.e. tahini. It can be made a number of ways, and everyone has a different preference to how it should taste: stronger in lemon vs garlic vs tahini, is how I like to categorize the three main different approaches. I personally prefer a little more lemon over garlic, I never want it to be overpowered by garlic. I think that adding too much garlic, can be like adding too much salt. It's bearable, but you keep thinking about what if it didn't taste that way. As for tahini, I don't want it over sesame-ed, but if I'm making 1.5 cups of dried chickpeas, that is usually 1 cup of tahini for me. If I want smaller portions, I match about a 1/4 cup of tahini to 1/2 a cup of dried chickpeas. So I'm doing roughly less than half the serving of tahini versus chickpea content.
I want my hummus to be nice and creamy, easy-smear-able-on-pitas style. That is the most typical in Israel, and Ottolenghi (my favorite), has the traditional basic creamy hummus to a tee. I'm Kurdish, and we all have our own distinct versions of hummus per region, similar to coffee and all other things to be quite honest, but hummus is what you learn from your mama. It doesn't really come down to you any other way, at least in our parts. You take that guidance, and you learn to adjust it to suit your needs, when you're ready to start owning your homemade version and the tables turn with age. That way, it becomes your own. Something to keep improving, to keep serving, to keep devouring, and pass down to the next generation, so that, that cycle can be ever evolving with time. It stays within family, with its slight tweaks, but the basis of it, the method, all remain the same. What I modified from my mama's version was the ice cold water content. This note I learnt from Ottolenghi, and how important it is that the water is ice cold. I add it at the very end, so that is helps lighten up the emulsion. I go in small quantities, watching the magic carefully take place, assessing the creaminess take form. I don't want it to get soupy, but I don't want it tough or paste-y either. Once set, you must let your hummus rest for 30mins before serving or putting in the refrigerator for later. This lets the flavors and textures settle in, just like taking something freshly baked out of the oven, you don't want to rush it.
Hummus is all about tasting along the process of making. It is important to pause when processing all the ingredients gradually, and tasting to see what it is lacking or overpowered by, to hopefully not add anymore and start to neutralize or balance it out with another ingredient, whether it's adding more tahini to balance the acidity, or adding more lemon to counteract the alkalinity.
Its partner, the unassuming pita bread, comes in a variety of ways in the supermarket. The way we like them at home are small approx 6" rounds, versus those larger faced ones. The importance to a pita bread is its puff. If it doesn't puff, something has gone a little wrong and it could be one of two things in my experiences: over-rolling that you have thinned out the middle accidentally so there are no air bubbles to puff, or it has been over-proofed. These are two common mistakes, when trialing pita breads and that is totally ok. There is always tomorrow, and like I like to say, it is never bad, it just didn't come out the right way, but de-puffed or over-proofed pita is still just as delicious to eat.
