An alternative houmous, and some ranting.

I’ve a love-hate relationship with Houmous. I love eating it, dipping crusty bread, pitta, vegetables or even fingers into a bowlful. Though I prefer to make my own, which is a pretty straightforward task, I’ll even admit to occasionally buying a plastic pot from the supermarket and munching the whole lot in one go.

The supermarket stuff, or at least the more upmarket products, can be a reasonable approximation of the real deal – quite unlike their cousin on the dip shelves, the so called ‘taramasalata’. Supermarket ‘taramasalata’ comes nowhere near the strong flavour and grainy texture of the real thing. The only satisfaction I can imagine one could possibly gain from a tub of this muck would have to involve catapulting it at the windscreen of one of those black tinted Range Rover-type vehicles which seem to be de rigeur with the bottom feeding Thatcherite pigs that live in my particular part of England. Thwack-splat, and a satisfying pink smear. Its hard to pull off the minor celebrity / drug dealer look with fishy pink jizz clogging up the wipers.

The ‘hate’ side of my relationship with houmous largely stems from its ubiquity in gatherings of young middle-class types. I don’t know how many times I’ve been given a plastic pot of houmous, with a few bits of carrot, as a starter when at social functions. I’ve no problem with eating shop-bought desserts (in fact bring on the Viennetta and tinned peaches), or eating houmous in a sort of pre-dinner ‘nibbles’ capacity, but plonking down a tub of houmous as a part of your meal? What can we expect next, fish fingers and oven chips? McCain’s Pizza in the shape of dinosaur feet?

I know of one person who thinks that serving a tub of houmous, and maybe some ‘sour cream and chives’ (what the feck sort of baby food is that exactly?) actually constitutes a meal worth inviting people round for. I have promised myself that if this person ever comes to dinner at my place I will insist on starting with chilli roasted pig trotters or something equally glorious. Then I’ll fire up the taramasalata cannon and we can go and have some fun in Tesco’s car park.

Anyhow, where was I? Yes, houmous – easy to make at home. I had a tin of butter beans that needed seeing off in the cupboard, so I thought I’d knock out an alternative non-chickpea houmous. Something a bit special to dip your finger in when you find yourself on a midnight fridge-raid.

Mint, Lime and Butterbean Houmous.

1 tin of butterbeans
1 Lime
Extra virgin olive oil
Small handful of fresh mint leaves
1 large tablespoonful of tahini
Big juicy clove of garlic, or two.
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Salt to taste.

Rinse the butterbeans and place in a blender. Add the garlic, tahini, cayenne pepper and mint. Squeeze in the lime and add enough olive oil to provide enough lubrication for the mixture to blend steadily. Pulse the blender until you have the desired consistency (I prefer mine quite coarse), adding more oil if the mixture needs it. Add salt to taste, but I doubt it will need any.

This tastes great straight away, but will benefit from a few hours, or overnight, covered tightly, in the fridge. It should last up to two days in the fridge.

Serve with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and some warm pitta bread – or whatever nibbles you prefer.