I am a big fan of cooking channels. I used to watch Food Network for hours before Ishaan was born. Then a time came when I didn’t have a single moment to sit infront of TV, so we decided to cancel cable. Then, around last year, I found out this amazing channel CreateTV. It has some of the best cooking and art shows, somethings I really love. The cooking shows are very simple and without any of the extra glamour/hype of Food Network. I watch it when I find any free time.
Few days back, I was watching the show Joanne Weir’s Cooking Confidence. She showed how to preserve lemons and then prepared hummus with it. It looked really interesting, but I wasn’t going to buy/make preserved lemons for this one dish – I may try that in future when I want to make something else with them. Instead of that, I thought it is a great way to use up some lemon pickle. I prepared a HUGE batch of this pickle last year and I want to use it soon to make some space in my pantry. I did not remember the exact hummus recipe, I prepare it with whatever I remembered. This has been a huge hit in my parties recently.
I serve it with either some crackers or vegetables like cucumber or carrots. Last time when a lot of it remained, I just mixed it with wheat flour to make hummus chapatis, yummm!.
Ingredients:
1 cup chickpeas
3-4 pieces lemon pickle
1/2 tea spn red chilli flakes (optional)
1 tbl spn tahini or 1 tbl spn white sesame seeds
1/2 tea spn cumin seeds
1-2 tbl spn lemon juice
1 tea spn chopped garlic
Olive oil
Capers(optional)
Salt
Method:
Soak chickpeas in water for 5-6 hrs or overnight. Cook them in pressure cooker. (You can just use canned chickpeas. Rinse them out well before using. I prefer soaking and cooking them at home).
Roast sesame seeds and cumin seeds.
Grind together chickpeas, sesame seeds (if using tahini, directly use it here), lemon pickle, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, chilli flakes, salt (be careful while using salt because lemon pickle already has a lot of salt). If needed, use olive oil while grinding. Take the paste in a bowl.
Spread some olive oil and capers on top. Serve.
Preparation time : 25min (if cooking chickpeas at home).
What a perfectly clever use of lemon pickle, Shilpa!!! That hummus looks so tasty.
I’ve been using up extra pickle in dals.
Nupur and Shipa – how do you manage to have ‘extra’ pickle? In my house pickle is not just eaten, it is inhaled – no chance for any ‘extras’ lying around to use as creatively as you have done 🙂
Gayatri, I have about 4 types of pickles in home and we usually eat it with rice, but these days I make rice only alternate days. We eat a LOT of pickle but I still have some to finish off 😀
That is a great idea Nupur. I have to try that sometime.
Hi Shilpa, I loved your Hummus recipe with lemon pickle. what a cool way to use lemon pickles. I love Create TV, which is an offshoot of Public Broadcasting Corporation( in short PBS ), which is really very educative. I like your recipes.
Vathsala
I have been planning to search for a recipe for hummus and didn’t find the time so far, but here it is falling in my lap, so to say 🙂 Thanks Shilpa. I will definitely be making this soon. – V
This looks and sounds perfectly divine! Excellent way to use various kinds of lemon pickle for subtley-different flavours- I am already in love with this recipe! Thanks for sharing-