Hummus, Hummus bi Tahina -Restaurant Stylee!
Hummus is one of my favorite snacks to make and eat. So simple and so quick.
So
Hummus is actually just the Arabic name for the chickpea [or ceci, or garbanzo bean]. What we in the US, at least, refer to as "hummus" is actually "Hummus bi Tahina" or "Chickpeas with Sesame". And that means that there is no such thing as "Black Bean Hummus", especially if someone throws the word "Southwest" at it. "Black Bean Hummus" is actually "Black Bean Dip", which totally does not sound as cool but -at least it's correct.
"Southwest Black Bean Dip" sounds decent though.
So if you want to be pedantic, you can totally tell people that.
Anyway, we were talking about hummus, not bean dips. There are many recipes for hummus -all of which contain, in varying ratios;
Chickpeas
Tahina
Garlic
an Acid
If they don't start with and/or contain all of those ingredients, it aint hummus.
All of the good hummuses I've tried also contain;
Water
Oil
Salt
The acid could be a tricky one, as some middle-eastern restauranteurs have told me they use citric acid as opposed to lemon juice or vinegar. I've tried it with citric acid [which you can find in the Kosher section of your local mega-grocery-store] and *shrug* it works, but I guess it misses out on the finer essence of lemon. Which if you are using store-bought lemon juice doesn't really matter. Anyway, hummus.
Unlock the Secrets
The key(s) to making your own awesome restaurant style hummus are:
An awesome food processor!
FAT!
I used to have a Braun stick blender with a mini food processor attachment. It held about 2 cups of material, it worked well for 3 or 4 years, then the magic smoke came out. So bought a cheap-o Nesco stick blender with mini food processor, it works well enough. I have a full size food processor, but it just doesn't work as well as the stick blender processors. I think it has something to do with the limited volume of the mini processors. A 15.5 oz. can of chickpeas just doesn't get "processed" as well with the big ones, as the beans don't come into contact with the blades as much, resulting in a grittier paste. The little processor chop the hell outta the beans into a very smooth paste.
Speaking of pastes, the awesome creamy mouthfeel of hummus comes from the fat, from the oil. You really need to add a lot of oil. I don't really use a set recipe for making hummus, but I do use almost as much oil as I do water, probably a 1:.80 or more ratio. Sure it amps up the caloric content but I did title this "Restaurant Stylee" not "Lo-Cal". Also, you don't have to use your expensive olive oil, you can absolutely use a blend of oils. I have three types of oil in the house: olive, canola, and sesame. Canola works everywhere, its flavor is very clean [doesn't taste like corn or peanuts] and has a relatively high smoke point so it can be used for frying. It's also inexpensive! I generally use a 1:4 ratio of olive to canola for everything from hummus to salad dressings. Your guests will never know.
ashley keeps bugging me so hopefully I can finish this later
On TVP Gyros, Sausages, and Burgers...
As below, I have been working on replicating foodstuffs. As Ashley is now mostly vegetarian and I still do most of the cooking, so I've had to adapt our meals. With that in mind, I've been working with meat analogs. I've tried seitan -and seitan is not "meaty" enough. The texture just isn't there. It's more spongy than meaty. So that one's off of the table [unless one of you have a good plan for making sietan not suck, please tell me...].
TVP
This brings us to TVP, or Textured Vegetable Protein. TVP is a registerd trademark of ADM [Archer Daniels Midland]. ADM is a giant agribusiness corporation that has been accused of price fixing lysine and citric acid in the early 90s [and subsequently fined $100 million, with a few corporate executives sent to prison for a few days -literally, a few days, like 10 days...]. Throw in violations of the Federal Clean Air Act, lobbying for the unfriendly [at least for real "family" farms] farm subsidies, lobbying for ethanol subsidies, among other things, and you have one of those evil megacorporations that you only hear about in movies. Google "ADM" and "clean air act", or "ethnanol", or "rainforest", or "slavery" and have a blast.
So TVP, a by-product of the soybean oil production process, made by high pressure extrusion, produced by an evil megacorp...And the greenies and veggies eat this stuff up [Morningstar burgers anyone?]...
*sigh*
I am against supporting this company...but, I like TVP...
So, moving on. TVP feels like meat in your mouth [...oh you!]. Therefore, for psuedo-vegetarians, like me who want, nay, NEED the meat, TVP is a godsend. At this stage I don't have any specific or exact recipes, but I can offer some guidelines for the effective use of TVP.
First of all, a lot of websites, internutters, bloggers, and vegetarians say to mix TVP with an equal, 1:1 ratio of water/stock to TVP.
Well, if you do that, you end up with a pile of not meaty, but warm mushy baby poop. So don't do that. Unless you have a baby poop fetish, in case have at it...
However, do mix TVP and water/stock at a ratio of 1:1/2 or 1:2/3 [for example 1 cup TVP to .5 cup of water]. This will give you some "bite" or "toothiness" to the TVP particles. I also add a few teaspoons of soy sauce to the liquid before mixing in the TVP. Soy sauce is sort of a "meat" flavor [Bragg's Amino Acid crap is essentially expensive unfermented soy sauce, but you could use that instead if that's your thing].
Another thing the internet meat substitute recipes seem to miss is fat. Seriously, some of these vegetarian recipes make no sense.
"Oh yeah, takes just like the real thing, just like a hamburger!".
Yet the product is made of black beans, carrots, mushrooms, and tofu. Now, don't get me wrong a bean burger can be good -as a bean burger, not a hamburger. However, the big thing that's missing is juicyness.
Juicyness
And where does juicyness come from in a hamburger or sausage patty? Fat, of course! And again a lot of these recipes have no or very little added fat. So, you want juicy fake meat, you gotta add fat. And don't be stingy with the fat. I add at least 2 tablespoons of oil per 1 cup dry TVP to my fake meat mixes. You can use whatever oil you want corn, soy, canola, "vegetable", sunflower, safflower, or whatever. The least amount of flavor in the oil, the better the results you'll get with your faux meat mixtures. Save the extra virgin olive oil for your salad dressings. Sure the calorie count goes up, but we are talking faux meat, not lo-cal entrees. So add the fat!
Meat Flavors
I am still working on this one, but I've got some good starts;
Add onion to all fake meat mixes. I often used dried flakes and/or powders.
Add soy sauce to the mixture.
Add oil to the mixture.
Use egg white(s) as a binding agent.
Hamburger: A little ground cremini/baby portabello mushrooms.
Sausage: Salt, crushed red pepper and sage. Sage is what makes sausage, "sausagey". More oil than ground beef.
Gyros Style Meat: Oregano, onion, garlic, and salt. Oregano seems to be the key flavor component of most gyros I've had. No curry powder.
by ill13/davids: 13-jan-2009
Lipton/Knorr Noodle Sides -Clone
So I've been kind of on a "replicate prepackaged/fast food" kick. One type of product that I've liked over the years is the noodle and/or rice side offered by Lipton, Knorr, and others. The convenience of dumping water and milk into a pot with a package of flavored noodle/rice is unbeatable. However, the excessive packaging [per serving size] and driving to the store to buy these things only when on sale, sucks.
So I've discovered a way to make them at home -and my version only adds maybe a minute or two to the prep time. The whole secret to the these products is simply *cornstarch*. For example, i'll do a "Garlic and Herb" version;
Ill's Noodle with Sauce Base
1.5 cups water
0.5 cups milk
1.0 cup egg nooodles [or 4 ounces, by weight]
1.0 tablespoon butter/margarine/oil [butter preferred for flavor, however the fat is really just for texture]
2.0 teaspoons of cornstarch
0.5 teaspoon salt [or to taste]
1] Combine all of the above in a pot on stove.
2] *Add your preferred flavorings.*[see below]
3] Cook on medium heat for 8-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
4] Sauce will thicken on standing.
The above will make a saucy noodle base very similar to the Lipton/Knorr products.
To make this "Garlic and Herb" noodlyicious, at the "Add your preferred flavorings" step add;
0.5 teaspoon of garlic powder
0.5 teaspoon of dried parsley
-.- pinch of onion powder
-.- pinch of MSG/Accent [if you aren't afraid of it]
The "herb" in these recipes is generally just some dried green fluff. Like plain old dried parsley.
I've successfully made the Butter and Herb, Broccoli & Cheddar, Bacon & Cheddar, and Chicken flavors with this base recipe. One of the key things to remember is that only TINY amounts of "real" food are necessary to achieve the look and texture of the original product(s). For example, when making the broccoli version, finely mince only one floret. The bacon? Use one slice. For these kinds of projects, I highly recommend you buy the pre-cooked bacon for "non gourmet" uses, like quiches, beans and rice, sauces, etc. The time and clean up savings is fricken immense!
by ill13/davids: 17-dec-2008
Welcome
how much luck is in your rainbow?
I like cheese and crackers -also reislings