smb (06/14/82)
Here's the recipe my girlfriend and I use. It's a combination of two others we've seen. 2 C chickpeas 1/4 C tahina 3/4 C lemon juice 3 cloves garlic [cumin to taste] Soak the chickpeas overnight, then bring them to a slow boil and let them simmer for an hour or two. It's worth the effort to find dried rather than canned chickpeas; the latter often carries a metallic taste. Toss everything into a blender or food processor until well-mixed. The texture is rather important; don't overmix, especially in the food processor. I personally prefer it a bit grittier than one usually gets in restaurants. It's better when served chilled, but you should taste it as you mix it; it never comes out the same twice in a row for us. And look around to find some good pita bread; there are about 4 brands available around here, of which 3 are awful and 1 is marvelous. It's also not too hard to bake; the simplest recipe in Clayton's "Complete Book of Breads" (a marvelous work I highly recommend, incidentally) works well, though rolling out the dough evenly is a bit tricky. One variation that worked very well was to grind sesame seeds in a food processor, rather than using store-bought tahina. But that won't work in a blender.