Only truly tasty and healthy dishes can have a thousand-year history. Chickpeas - a type of pea, more common in the countries of the Middle East and Asia - the cradle of ancient human civilizations. In the East, hummus is a completely independent dish. It is also cooked with vegetables, meat and fish, where chickpeas serve as both the main and additional ingredients.
What is this plant attracted attention that for more than seven thousand years remains among the popular food and even used as a means of traditional medicine, and what dishes can be prepared from hummus - pea oriental porridge?
Hummus from chickpea at home - the basic technological principles
Homemade chickpea hummus is a traditional and popular dish in the East and the Mediterranean countries. Actually, there is nothing difficult in the technology of its preparation. The only caveat that experienced housewives try to do without chickpeas, as well as peas, in the preparation of home-cooked meals is the duration of cooking of the product.
Yes, this is an inconvenience, but it is so compensated for by the nutritional value of lamb peas that now, after reading the article, women who pay great attention to healthy and rational nutrition will go to the nearest supermarket to immediately start cooking experiments in their kitchen.
In the countries of Asia and the East, chickpea puree is prepared, as usual, by adding traditional spices: cumin, turmeric, paprika - all that is used in the national cuisine of southern countries. In its pure form, chickpea puree tastes almost no different from potato, except for its appearance. Only, our favorite, mashed potatoes is less useful.
Not very attractive color of hummus is easy to change with the help of the same turmeric, spicy greens or beets. By adding a little color to the pea paste, you can make another popular dish - falafel. These are pea balls, deep-fried - a very satisfying and tasty dish, which can also be diversified with the help of various fillings and sauces. Choose not green, but yellow chickpea - it has a neutral taste, with a slight nutty aroma. This variety allows you to cook practically any dishes based on pea puree: meatballs and meatballs, casseroles, pies - culinary imagination will prompt you to add to the main ingredient in order to make the dish the most beloved in the family.
1. Cooking hummus from chickpeas at home - the basic recipe
Ingredients:
Dried chickpeas 0.5 kg
Water for cooking 1.25 l
Hummus is a common pea puree. That is, the first stage of preparation is to soak hard beans and pre-boil them. The beans are thoroughly washed in a large amount of water, then poured with clean water in a ratio of 1: 2, and kept in a cool place for 10-12 hours, after which the water is drained, and again add clean, cold, but already in a ratio of 1: 2.5 . Cook peas on low heat, in a sealed container, for 60-90 minutes. Cooking time depends on the duration of soaking the beans, the heating temperature. Salt the peas should be no earlier than 10-15 minutes before the end of cooking, as salt prevents the cooking of food.
For the preparation of mashed chickpeas multicooker is very useful. Ready-made semi-finished product can be stored in the freezer, in a hermetically sealed container to speed up the preparation of dishes from pea puree afterwards.
Broth merges when the beans are soft, then - all according to the recipe. What to add to the finished mash is decided by the cook, but some ideas can be adopted. These are in the recipes below.
2. Homemade chickpea hummus - ideas for sandwiches
The options for making sandwiches based on pea puree are many: from the classic chickpea hummus, with the addition of cumin, olive oil and wine, invented in ancient Rome, to modern fantasies, with the addition of zucchini, eggplants, tomatoes, pine nuts or sesame. The texture of mashed potatoes allows you to create real culinary masterpieces, decorating sandwiches with vegetable pastes or meat pastes, added to the chickpea puree, which has a pleasant, subtle taste of nuts. Unlike “pigeon”, green peas, “mutton” peas do not have a pronounced taste, so it can be combined with any products. Ingredients:
Borodinsky bread 400 g
Chickpea puree (semi-finished product) 350 g
Parsley (fresh leaves) 140 g
Garlic 40g
Hot peppers
Salt
Ground cumin
Olive oil 70 ml
Pickled cucumber 1-2 pcs.
Cooking Method:
Cut rye bread into pieces, 0.5-0.7 cm thick. If desired, you can make them curly with metal grooves. Trim dry - they can be used to make kvass.
Put boiled chickpea, chopped parsley, garlic, cumin seeds, ground red pepper into a blender bowl and carefully perebuyu mass until smooth. Add olive oil, smash again. Put the cooked pasta in a pastry bag and drop it into pieces of bread. Decorate with cucumber slices.
3. Cooking chickpea hummus at home - bruschetta with chickpea paste
Ingredients:
Baguette 1 pc.
Cheese (or Feta, Mozzarella) 300 g
Lettuce, basil 150 g
Hummus (puree without spices) 300 g
Cherry 6-8 pcs.
Olives (pitted) 5-6 pcs.
Cayenne pepper
Salt
Sesame 50 g
Cooking:
Baguette cut plates, fry the pieces on the grill. Spread them with hummus, pre-salt and pepper it to taste. Put lettuce on top, sliced slices of cheese, and cherry tomatoes. Garnish with olives and sesame seeds.
4. Homemade chickpea hummus with beets in pita
Ingredients:
Armenian pita bread 1 pc.
Garlic 50g
Beet, boiled canteen 150 g
Chickpea puree 200 g
Dry wine
Hard cheese 250 g
Walnuts 120 g
Mayonnaise 100g
Olive oil (or nut) 50 ml
Cooking Procedure:
Puree of chickpea, and grated boiled beets, immerse in a blender, add garlic, a little vegetable oil and mayonnaise, to give pomp and plasticity to the mass. Interrupt carefully. Cheese rub on a fine grater, chop the roasted kernels of nuts.
Expand the pita on the work surface, sprinkle with wine. Wait a few minutes for it to soak up and soften. Brush with cooked pasta, sprinkle with grated cheese and nuts. Fold the roll, wrap in film and soak in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Cut it into rings, put on a dish. Snack can be served hot, warming up slices of roll in the microwave.
5. Chickpea hummus at home: pie filling
Ingredients:
Boiled chickpeas 0.5 kg
Onions 250 g
Carrots 200 g
Vegetable oil 150 ml
Salt
Pepper
Cooking Method:
Wash carrots, peel, grate. Peel the onion into cubes. Pass the vegetables in a large amount of vegetable oil. Connect with boiled chickpeas and crush with a blender until smooth.
Cooked mashed potatoes can be served as a side dish for meat and fish, used as a filling for pies.
6. Homemade chickpea hummus: falafel with cheese
Balls of vegetable puree, deep-fried - not new in world cooking. Falafel is as old as hummus. At the heart of the dish is chickpea puree, but cooked in a special way. How much this recipe will become original and favorite in the family menu also depends on the fantasy of the housewife.
Ingredients:
Hummus (cake mix) 600 g
Turmeric 10 g
Butter 90 g
Soft cheese, creamy 240 g
Garlic 20g
Greens to taste
Dried paprika (pieces)
Bread crumbs 120 g
Egg 1 pc.
Flour 30 g
Fat for deep-frying 300-400 ml (by volume of dishes)
Cooking:
In the finished mashed chickpeas add melted butter, turmeric. Taste it, season with salt and pepper if necessary, and add chopped garlic. Smash the blender mass.
Chop the cheese finely, combine with the chopped parsley, cilantro, basil. Optionally, you can add any spices, to taste and mood.
Divide the mashed potatoes into balls weighing 50 g each. Place 1/2 tsp in each billet. stuffing. Form the balls so that the filling is inside.
Beat the egg, combining it with a spoonful of flour. Dip the balls into the egg mixture, then roll in breadcrumbs, and immediately transfer them gently to the boiling fat.
Fry "falafelki" need to ruddy color, fully immersing them in boiling fat.
Decorate the dish with greens for serving. Pour balls with your favorite sauce.
There is a version that the monks invented falafel. Trying to satisfy the need for protein foods, they invented hummus cutlets.
Homemade chickpea hummus - tips
Chickpea has clear advantages over its closest bean counterpart. It consists in a higher content of healthy fats and a lower glycemic index. The content of amino acids needed by man in chickpeas is two and a half times higher than the same indicator in green peas.
The second comparison of the composition of two related plant species is also a weighty argument in favor of chickpea. Both beans contain carbohydrates, which, as you know, have a detrimental effect on waist size, but they are slow in chickpeas, that is, when they enter the body, they are absorbed gradually, so to speak - as needed, creating a long-lasting sensation satiety, and not postponed in the form of fat folds on the sides.
Of course, chickpea has other advantages:
The high content of fiber allows you to use chickpeas to cleanse the body. True, for this, chickpeas are consumed raw, soaking peas for the night, and then grinding them with a meat grinder. The course of purification - 7 days; 3 times a day, one teaspoon on an empty stomach;
Chickpeas increases lactation - it is useful to know nursing mothers;
High magnesium content strengthens the nervous system. It turns out that this is why in the East people always smile calmly and kindly!
Do not add baking soda when cooking peas. Sodium bicarbonate softens water, not peas. In leguminous plants, sodium is contained in sufficient quantities to meet daily needs. An increase in the consumption of sodium salts leads to edema, an increase in blood pressure, and prevents the absorption of other essential minerals - magnesium, potassium, calcium.
