garbanzo beans
.هذا ليس حمص والدك
Cicer arietinum, I’ll admit, I’m only familiar with the little brown, tooth-lookin’ buggers from cans. Canned beans‽ No, not anymore. Not in this man’s kitchen. Not for this blog! WE ARE DONE with that pansy-ass Wal-Mart nonsense! Off to the farmer’s market to buy some fresh by-gawd garbanzos!
My wonderfully-seasoned readers,
—meet 408 grams of fresh garbanzo beans!
I’m not going to insult your intelligence by … pretending … I didn’t know these needing shelling. Suffice it to say: the AMHB backyard is now full of shucked chickpea sheaths. I didn’t take that into account above, so we actually wound up with 279 grams of fresh, shelled garbanzo beans!
I cast about looking for a preferred or common or internationally-obvious implementation for these beans, but nothing cropped up. Fortunately, my friend Solomon has a well-informed customer with whom he works, and so he answered your question and mine with one word: hummus. According to Soloman’s correspondant, “It’s going places. I was in Sainsbury’s the other day and there were about 30 different varieties. Also you can cut up carrots and dip them.” I was sold. Hummus was the answer.
Through strange and perverse dark arts, AMHB was able to put our hands on the top-secret hummus recipe of the famous Rooftop by JG restaurant (inside Beverly Hills’ Waldorf Astoria). Don’t ask how; we’ll let you know when the statute of limitations has expired. So, what do we need?
12 oz (340 g) fresh, shelled chickpeas
0.5 teaspoons (1 g) [fresh] chopped garlic
2 tablespoons (31 g) lemon juice
0.5 cups (8 g) extra-virgin olive oil
1.5 teaspoons (4 g) kosher salt
I was 61 grams short of the beans (damn you, shells), but properly adjusting the rest of the ingredients would’ve required maths, and I just couldn’t be bothered. Full steam ahead!
Blanch the beans: done.
Dump all ingredients into blender: done.
Blend: done.
And… green hummus.
I deferred to the inimitable advice of Solomon, and plated my hummus with carrots, which I have to say, really does a good job of complimenting the shock of green with the shock of orange. Add a handmade bowl to the mix (mostly washed of its usual purpose of cleaning paintbrushes), and I could even be mistaken for a man who owns a camera!
How is it? Well, it doesn’t help that I hate hummus.
It’s garbage. Who would eat this?
Who? Me. Why? For you. Because I love you[r clicks].
Actually, this was pretty decent bean-goo for carrots, especially considering I also hate carrots. The freshness of the beans really lent a brightness to the hummus that the Sainsbury’s slop could never dream of, and the color helps a lot, too! The texture oddly reminded me of something desserty, and for a snack food, that’s another tally in its favor. The garlic and lemon helped things along, but even without 17% of the expected beans, the overwhelming flavor was still chlorophyll, like a well-seasoned mouthful of crabgrass. It might be for some folks, but not this man.
Maybe as a garnish, probably roasted or fried, I’ll give garbanzos another try someday. As for the hummus, alongside another actual dish, the brightness (in the mouth and in the eyes) would do more, but as things stand here and now, I rate garbanzos 90/210 Vongerichtens.
