Hummus with seared lamb and toasted pine nuts
Hummus with seared lamb and toasted pine nuts
“I love this combination of cold, thickly nutty, buff-coloured paste and hot, lemony-sweet shards of meat, and the waxy, resiny nuts: it instantly elevates the hummus from its familiar deli-counter incarnation” (Nigella, p262).
Both Christopher and I really enjoyed the last meal – the lamb kebabs, pitta, garlic and mint mayonnaise, chick peas with sorrel and tomato salad. Tina was nice enough to describe it on my message board as a Middle-Eastern feast, and I could hardly have been more pleased by any comment, as that was exactly the environment that I wanted to create. And I feel free to guiltlessly indulge in such extravagances once a week, as my weekly weigh-in revealed that I am exactly the same weight as I was last week, perhaps finally drumming the simple nutritional message home to me (which possibly I failed to fully understand before), that a nourishing and sensible diet with measured portion sizes throughout the week, is surely the way to go to maintain a healthy weight. As I say, we both liked the last meal and are both enjoying the chick pea section immensely. Earlier this week (I think Monday), I prepared Chris a chick pea mash to eat with his dinner which also went down very well, so I think it would be fair to say that cooking from this section has reminded me of the allure of chickpeas as an ingredient.
I turn now to the next recipe in HTE – hummus. I must be honest and admit now that I don’t actually have a great deal of expertise regarding hummus. For a start, I have never made my own hummus before, so this will be a culinary first for me. Secondly however, unlike the vast majority of people, I haven’t actually eaten hummus (shop-brought or otherwise) a great deal either. Although I’m sure I must have at least tasted it before then (growing up as a vegetarian with two vegetarian parents in the 1980/1990s, I find it hard to believe that I hadn’t!), the first proper memory I have of eating hummus is when – about 4 years ago – Chris’s mum gave us some shop-brought hummus to accompany a kebab-type takeaway. To be honest, it didn’t blow me away. In fact, I found it far too heavy and cloggy and completely uninspiring in taste. I’m sure that was solely due to the fact that it was an inferior shop-brought specimen and not homemade. Indeed, I have high hopes for this homemade version and remain completely unprejudiced with regards to hummus.
As always when I approach a new recipe, I find myself drawn to similar recipes in Nigella’s other books, just to get a flavour of what she herself thinks of the food. I did notice that in her newest book – Nigella Express – there are two further recipes for hummus. Hummus, yes, but embellished hummus; one an avocado and green pea hummus and the other a red pepper hummus. The red pepper hummus looks rather tasty (I love roasted red peppers in any case) and contains tinned chick peas, but I was interested to note that the Kermit-green avocado and pea hummus doesn’t even contain chick peas – a chick pea-less hummus is you will. This got me thinking about hummus as a food-type. I know so little about it, so am completely ignorant of the answers to the questions I pose, but does a hummus have to include chick peas in order to qualify as a hummus or is “hummus” just a blanket-noun to describe any type of starchy “dip” or “paste?” Since my general flipping through Nigella Express, I have read (with fascination) of various recipes for modified hummus. Recipes posted by members on the Nigella.com forum reveal a really tasty sounding creamed corn hummus for (but not exclusively) children and a rather perplexing beetroot hummus. If this goes well then I can easily imagine being tempted by one or both of the above. I’ll keep you posted.
The novelty-factor is by no means the only reason why I am eagerly anticipating this recipe. I feel as if I know a lot more about how to treat dried and soaked chick peas now (certainly, they were ravishing in the chick pea and pasta soup and that tagine) and also have some guaranteed-success recipes for tinned chick peas (that devastating cherried and chick pea’d couscous and of course the chick peas with sorrel), but it is nice to fully appreciate the versatility of chickpeas as an *ingredient.* To actually *use* them to make something other, (in this case hummus, although I would strongly argue the case for the chick pea mash) I feel really widens my culinary horizons. Not only this, but it hardly needs to be said – does it? – that I love some of the other ingredients for this meal. I have wittered on before about how much I love nuts of any kind and it is shamefully true that when I made the tagliatelle with chicken from the Venetian ghetto, I immediately ate all of the remaining pine nuts in the packet, which I was intending to save for weekday snacking! I have written about my nostalgic love for Greek yoghurt before and the obsession continues unabated. It must at least be partially genetic, because such is my mum’s addiction to it, that when she came to visit us a few weekends ago, she had brought a pot from the local co-op and rushed to fridge it as soon as she got through the door. Lamb, too, is a meat that I’m very keen on. Granted, it’s not my favourite red meat (have I mentioned my passion for pork?), but I have made some wonderful lamb recipes (not least, the marinated lamb kebabs last weekend). I have only made three lamb dishes so far for this blog, one of which I loved (braise-roasted with caper sauce) and the other two I was less keen on (cawl – although, come to think of it, I didn’t loathe it- and lamb and bean braise). Reflecting on it, it occurs to me now that I disliked those recipes where the lamb was stewed or boiled (which fits in with my general irrational prejudice towards stews; I vow that I will get over this), and being as the lamb in this meal is pan-fried, I can only think that I will slatheringly love it. I am also partial to the use of cumin in this dish. Cumin featured strongly in last week’s menu, and I thought its deep, smoky intensity worked wonders as part of our Moorish feast.
In terms of what to serve this with, again, the ingredients scream out to be eaten as part of a loosely-defined Middle-Eastern meal. I am taking on board Nigella’s suggested accompaniment on p263 and serving the hummus “with lots of oven-warmed pitta” (I say oven-warmed, but Chris likes to be in charge of searing the pitta on our heavy ridged griddle). As this hummus is pretty much a meal in itself, thus appeasing the innate “meat and two veg” desire I seemingly hold within me, in my opinion it doesn’t need much more than the pitta accompaniment. Flicking through the “high-summer al fresco lunch” that this hummus forms a part of though, I am reminded of that wonderful grainy-sharp salad which I made last year – the tabbouleh (p260-261). Re-reading my enthusiastic original post was the final straw and I decided to make it again as part of this meal. By the way, I think that I will replace the photographs of the tabbouleh on the original post in much the same way as I did for the beef and beans with pasta. For one thing, my initial novice camera work is somewhat of an embarrassment now, and for another – as with everything else I do – I feel that if I’m going to do something (and this immense project certainly counts as something to me) – I should do it right (otherwise why bother at all?), and therefore I want the pictures on my blog of the glorious food that I have loved cooking and eating, to reflect my genuine appreciation of that food. Due to its raging success last week (and also the fact that I can get gorgeously fresh and juicy home-grown tomatoes from a nearby farmer’s market every Friday morning and this will be the last Friday morning for a long while that I have to myself), I have decided to make dad’s tomato salad again. Truthfully, I hanker after it because it is my childhood on a plate, but it is also deeply gorgeous and Christopher (who didn’t eat any approximation of tomato salad during his childhood) also loved it. So this is our Middle-Eastern menu; hummus with seared lamb and toasted pine nuts with pitta bread, tabbouleh and dad’s tomato salad. I don’t know nearly enough about wine to even pretend that this is an informed choice, but I am also going to ensure that a bottle of red wine (a Californian zinfandel if you please) is present.
In terms of quantities, I am halving them. The original quantities were for 8 as part of a blatant table-groaning feast, so I reckoned that half would be enough for the two of us as part of a much more modest feast. I’ll let you know.
Ingredients: If you want to make this too, you shouldn’t find any of the ingredients too hard to come by. Certainly, I brought most of the ingredients from Tescos. I say most, because I couldn’t find the tahina in Tescos. Tahina – if you don’t know – is a paste of ground sesame seeds and it is one of those ingredients that would have caused me no end of hassle had I still been living in Devon. Here, however, I may not have been able to find it in Tescos, but both normal and dark tahina are sold in our local Co-op, which is within walking distance of our house. Indeed, I walked there after putting the rest of the shopping away. I don’t quite understand why a massive and hectic Tescos doesn’t stock tahina, yet a small, quiet village Co-op does (and both brown and “white” no less), but there you go. In terms of the Greek yoghurt, I hardly need to tell you – having written of my obsession before – but I used Total Greek yoghurt (just thinking about its cool voluptuousness makes me drool!). I have had trouble locating garlic-infused oil in Tescos before (and have often had to grumblingly drive to Waitrose), but our Tescos do stock it with the rest of the infused oils. In terms of the lamb, Nigella stipulates using lean, tender lamb and goes onto mention that she herself uses lamb noisettes because “I know that, once I’ve stripped off the encircling fat, they’ll be lean but still satiny within.” Now, I’m lucky enough to have moved to a village where there is still one of those – sadly few and far between – local village butchers. I visited said butchers for the first time on Friday and it is absolutely wonderful. The butcher is very friendly and helpful, which I’m sure will greatly facilitate this blog. Now they didn’t have plain noisettes of lamb, only mint-stuffed noisettes, but when I explained what I wanted the noisettes for, he was kind enough to actually slice some individual noisette discs from the larger noisette roll. As I was going for half quantities, I needed about 8oz, which came to just over £5.00. And whilst we’re on the subject, I actually ordered a larger noisette roll for next week’s dinner; a celebratory roast for a celebratory end to the chick pea section! If you can’t get hold of lamb noisettes (and with good butchers becoming rarer and rarer, this is a possibility), then Nigella does say that at a push you could use those little strips designed for stir frying. And Chris and I have used those successfully in stir-frys and quick midweek curries before, so I am sure that they would be fine.
(The tahini)
(The noisettes of lamb)
(The noisettes cut into "rags and tatters" of meat)
Method: I love food that can be prepared in advance. I love having the whole afternoon, delightfully stretched out in front of me, allowing me the time to potter around in my own kitchen and in my own way. And this is exactly what I did on Saturday. In fact, I spent my afternoon making the hummus itself, preparing the tabbouleh (right up to adding the peeled, diced tomatoes. Like Nigella, I don’t like the pink-stained sogginess of peeled tomatoes that have been left sitting around) and preparing the dressing for dad’s tomato salad. Oh, you will need to get somewhat organised the night before though, which simply involves soaking your chick peas with Anna del Conte’s wonderful tenderising paste stirred in.
A lot of the preparation for the hummus doesn’t actually require your presence. Once the drained and rinsed chick peas are covered with water along with the onion (I used half), bay leaves and garlic, they can – and should - be left to simmer – unattended – for the first hour and a half. Nigella always makes a big deal about the length of time that chick peas should be cooked and advises heavily against undercooking them, but as I wrote last time, I can only tell it how I find it, and again- this time as last- after 1 ½ hours, mine were tender, buttery and unreservedly soft. So, I dutifully caught some of the cooking liquid and drained them after this relatively short time (I actually used that time to make the dressing and soak the burghal for the tabbouleh, economical as I am!). Making the hummus is easy enough, although I really don’t know what you’d do if you didn’t have a food processor, because you need to blitz the cooked chick peas with some of the cooking liquid, the garlic, olive oil, tahina (and how good does that smell by the way? If you don’t know, buy it! It’s worth it for the smell alone), lemon juice, cumin and Greek yoghurt. As with everything else you cook, slavish adherence to the recipe isn’t expected, and you very much add whatever else you feel the hummus needs to reach your desired taste, intensity and consistency. I can only tell you my thoughts, but for half quantities of the hummus, I found that I liked an additional 90ml of cooking liquid to loosen the mixture, an additional tablespoon of lemon juice and an additional ½ tablespoon of Greek yoghurt. And believe me; this made a hummus that was very much to my taste. In fact, after I had decanted it to a bowl and fridged it, I had to squirt washing-up liquid over both the bowl of the food processor and spoon to stop me from eating the remaining hummus! Come to think of it, I don’t suppose it would have hurt, but I don’t want to fall back into the old habit of consuming all of my daily calories before I even sit down to dinner, simply from picking at all of the ingredients! Anyway, you can then comfortably forget about the hummus until an hour before you eat it, when it then needs to be decanted (yes again!) into the bowl in which you wish to serve it (and I used an oval bowl with a tapering rim...you can see).
So, this is a meal which can very much be cooked in advance. There are only two things that need to be done right before you sit down to dinner. The first is toasting the pine nuts, which takes all of about 5 minutes. The second is searing the lamb. And I do impart a warning here; if you are using the individual lamb noisettes, then don’t leave cutting them into thin rags until the very last minute. Because there is nothing wasted on those tender discs whatsoever, it does take a while to cut them into the requisite rags and tatters of meat (and that was with half quantities!). In fact, I don’t know whether it is because my “rags” were too small, or whether I am just rubbish at cutting meat, but it took me 20 minutes to cut my meat up. And I don’t mean 20 minutes as some undefined annoyingly long time, but from 16:55-17:15! Like I say, the lamb really does need to be seared at the last minute in hot garlic-oil, but it doesn’t take too long of frying the lamb in a hot pan before those skinny ribbons brown and crisp up nicely.
It is then just an assembly job of tipping the lamb over the hummus and strewing with the toasted pine nuts and some flat-leaf parsley. Because I am a neat-freak – in food as in life – I just didn’t want to add parsley to the tangled mess atop the hummus, so provided some chopped flat-leaf parsley in a bowl on the table.
(The chick peas after 1 1/2 hours cooking)
(The blitzed chick peas with garlic, olive oil, tahina, lemon juice and cumin)
(With the Greek yoghurt and desired extras - see method)
Result: As I have written – and made no secret of – when I read through this recipe for the first time, I was quite shocked at how it is actually served. The lamb (along with all those pan juices and burnt bits), pine nuts and parsley are sprinkled over the hummus in its bowl. I had assumed, before reading the recipe, that the hummus would be served in its own bowl and that the same would apply for the lamb, the pine nuts and parsley. It somehow seemed too messy and cluttered to have everything strewed atop the hummus, but as you can see, I followed Nigella’s serving suggestion and did as instructed in the recipe. I must admit that it didn’t look as jumbled as I thought it would do. It’s true that you can’t really see that manila, creamy paste under the heavy tangle of lamb, but there is something about the colours of this dish that can’t help but please. The brown and crispy curls and ribbons of lamb did look lovely with the golden toasted pine nuts nestled amongst their strips and those deeply golden-blushed pine nuts do look resplendent – and somehow festive – atop the hummus. So, I suppose my initial prejudice was wrong.
In terms of the taste of this dish, I will tell you now that I am not going to give this as glowing a review as usual. I loved the hummus. I loved the lamb. I loved the pine nuts. However, I didn’t like the combination of the above; the way the meal was put together. Be patient; I will elaborate.
In terms of the hummus, I absolutely adored the taste; truly I did. There were so many tastes to this hummus, which worked together so well to make a homogonous intense, smoky, nutty and mouth-filling paste. Of course, the hummus was nutty and the very essence of chickpeas. Indeed, that wonderful nuttiness just fills the mouth - with its smoky intensity and buttery smoothness - as only nuts can do. This version – much more so than brought hummus – was aromatic with the wonderful, unique taste of chick peas. You want chick peas, you make this hummus! It is both “chick pea” itself and simultaneously more than that. I guiltlessly dipped my finger in the tahina to try it when I first opened it, and it had that same concentration, depth and mouth-filling nutty intensity, which I am sure, complimented the similar properties of the chick peas. In my opinion, the cumin also made itself known here. It manifested as a wonderful deeply aromatic – yet subtle – aftertaste, which elevated the depth and force of the pungent hummus with its smoky spiciness. I’m not sure if this is an original addition, but it is not one that I would be happy to leave out.
I have already admitted to the fact that I don’t know a lot about hummus, but even so, the texture of Nigella’s hummus seemed superior to my experience of the shop-brought stuff. As I say, that shop-brought stuff can be heavy and cloggy with a texture that I can only liken to wet cement. The texture of this hummus was completely different. Decanting it into its bowl from the food processor was like dealing with a transcendentally light soufflé; instantly risen and at once injected with air from a whoosh of egg whites. Nigella writes that this tender, whipped quality is given to the hummus by the addition of Greek yoghurt, and its unique properties certainly made their mark here. As I say, the hummus was light, whisked and fluffy. Even with the addition of yoghurt, however, I still found that I had to add an extra 90ml of chick pea cooking liquid, as the hummus was very stiff. You should also know that it firms up a lot with time, and even as it sits – at room temperature on the table – it firms up further and becomes somehow heavier. As suitable as this would be for the purpose, I’m not sure that I would want to keep this hummus throughout the week for smearing on bagels and jacket potatoes, spreading in pitta and generally using as a dip. This is a shame, because the quantities given in HTE are very generous, so you are almost guaranteed leftovers.
As mentioned, I adore pine nuts and it is therefore no surprise that I loved them here. I love them toasted in a hot pan. It makes a wonderful combination between crisp, golden outside and smooth, waxy interior. In terms of what a food technologist would call “mouthfeel,” toasting them also makes them even more delightfully crunchy than they already are. They are very good as a partner to the hummus. Their crisp crunchiness was the perfect companion to the smooth creaminess of the hummus. Hummus is – at the end of the day – a dip and I liked the fact that the nutty crunch of the pine nuts echoed that “dip-and-crudités” feel.
I did enjoy the lamb also. It can only be a pleasure – surely - to eat strips of lamb that are crispy-edged and crunchily-brown from stir-frying and believe me, it was such a pleasure. Those ribbons of lamb were very nice indeed. They were still tender inside, even though they had been seared in blistering heat, which is why Nigella stipulates using noisettes of lamb. Sometimes, when lamb strips are stir-fryed, they can become chewy and fibrous beyond belief, and it was nice to eat burnished, crispy and meaty strips that were yet beyond tender. Because of the fact that they were fried in garlic oil with fresh lemon juice squeezed over them, they tasted a notch above normal stir-fryed lamb. There was a lemony-sweetness to them, which somehow elevated and lightened them and because this was rather a carby, heavy meal – what with the hummus and the pitta – that final touch was the perfect compliment to the rest of the meal. They also tasted a little garlicky, although I found the breath of garlic to manifest itself as sweetness, rather than an acrid burn; a garlicky sweetness that worked so favourably with the lemon juice. I will be honest; noisettes are more expensive than supermarket strips and they are also more hassle to prepare, yet I would express reluctance to abandon them for the cheaper, effortless cut. I think it is their ability to remain tender, despite crisping up obediently and delightfully, that makes me cling to them (but you do as you please of course).
Even with all this, I did write that I wasn’t too keen on the way that this meal was put together and even though I *did* enjoy the hummus, the lamb and the pine nuts separately; the balance of the meal spoiled my enjoyment of it as a whole. I’ll try and explain. The hummus – as I say – was lovely; smoky and deep with real intensity. Even though it was much more tender than shop-brought versions, it did firm up and become heavier (almost by the minute) on sitting. It is also – indeed, should be – a very intense, (dare I say cloying?) rich paste. Obviously, Nigella loves hummus and I have a feeling that it is one of those foodstuffs that she could eat, spoonful by spoonful, straight out of the bowl. This would explain a.) the vast quantity of hummus in relation to the lamb and pine nuts and b.) the fact that the lamb and pine nuts are sitting *on* the hummus, meaning that when one takes a big scoop of lamb (as is entirely desirable, especially if it is the only meat on the table as was the case in our meal), it is impossible not also to collect a big dolloping ladleful of hummus, which not only dominates the flavour of everything else, but is also so rich, intense and heavy that it meant that I was quickly full and a little nauseas from all that carby richness. To me, hummus has that (usually entirely desirable) pungency, which ensures that its heaviness, richness and glottal cloyingness is a treat as part of a table-groaning mezze, but also means that it is not a foodstuff which can be eaten by the serving spoon – as it could not help but be eaten here. In my opinion, hummus is lovely, but it is also essentially a condiment and its status is elevated here with only mixed success. I would have loved this in its own, smaller dish perhaps even with the pine nuts sprinkled over (they did compliment it well). Yes, I do think that this hummus did compliment the lamb well (the marriage of chick peas and lamb is holy to me), but I feel that this marriage would be more successful here in smaller amounts and combined as desired by the eater; the hummus smeared on each ribbon of lamb in quantities chosen by said eater.
I hope that I haven’t given the impression that I disliked this hummus. As I say, I did like it on its own and in smaller quantities. There is nothing to dislike; its aromatic pungent intensity is all-too Moorish. Rather, I took issue at the balance of the meal; and I am tempted to say that this is borne out of personal taste. Nigella obviously loves hummus and can stomach a lot of its richness. I, on the other hand, would have preferred some distance between the various components of this meal. Luckily, this is a change that could easily be made (for God’s sake, it would just be a case of getting out a few extra serving bowls!). So, I do take away a positive experience of hummus and in reference to the other recipes that I mentioned in the introduction, I wouldn’t be adverse to trying one (or more) of them in the future (I can’t help being drawn to Nigella’s “Express” version of red pepper hummus). Give it a few weeks though – I’m still waiting for my stomach to settle!
(Toasting the pine nuts)
(Frying the lamb in garlic-oil)
(Brown and crispy lamb, with the lemon juice poured over)
Other person’s perspective: Chris said that the hummus was very nice by itself. He said that he liked the strong chick pea taste. He sadly said that he doesn’t like pine nuts, although this is just personal taste. He went on to say that they didn’t add anything to the dish, but just got stuck in his teeth! He described the lamb as “brilliant” and loved all the flavours in the lamb. Like me, he wasn’t keen on the whole ensemble – the hummus, the lamb and the pine nuts - all together wasn’t keen because ridiculous amounts of hummus in relation to the lamb.
(The decanted hummus, prior to its lamb-pine nut-parsley topping)
(I hope you will indulge me with another picture of dad's tomato salad!)
Future changes: My future changes are obvious, but I will write them anyway, as I know that, if employed, they would make a real difference to my enjoyment of the dish, and since I can’t be the only one with such taste buds, I include them here to be helpful. Firstly, I would halve quantities of the hummus, but leave the quantities of the nuts and lamb as is. You might be under the impression that since the hummus is reasonably labour-intensive to make (and you would be right), it’s just not worth making in such small quantities. Okay, make what you want, but I would still only *serve* half quantities with full quantities of lamb and nuts as before. Secondly, I would treat the hummus as a dip, not as a vegetable accompaniment. This means that I would serve it in its own smaller bowl (with probably the pine-nuts sprinkled over, although not for Chris) with the lamb strewed over a nearby plate. The lamb could then be used to dip into the hummus on whim. If you think that there wouldn’t be enough ingredients to dip into hummus then (and you may have a point), then think about providing a loosely-defined Middle-Eastern salady thing also. There is a great recipe for a Moorish crunch salad in Jamie’s Kitchen, which may be worth a go. Failing that, why not forgo the whole thing, and simply make just the hummus for a laid-back night in with some decent crudités (some chicory spears, raw veg... you know the drill)?
(My plate; toasted pitta stuffed with lamb and hummus, tabbouleh and tomato salad. And although I would love to tell you otherwise, I couldn't finish it all!)
Rating: I can only honestly rate this 3/5 in its present state and Chris rates it 2/5, so it receives an overall rating of 2 ½ 5 – half marks!
