Originally written on 5/19/04; 2:13:12 PM

After buying hummus for years in the store, it took Alton Brown and a food processor to get me out of the store for good. I use home-grown parsley and spices from Penzey’s to make it distinctive. I got the core of this recipe from Alton Brown via his terrific “Good Eats” show, but made a few changes. I sometimes up the garlic to 5 cloves and blend longer to get a better consistency.

Ingredients:

• 5 cloves of garlic
• 2 cans of chickpeas
• 5 T of tahini
• 2 lemon (medium)
• parsley
• 2 T of kosher salt
• 1 t of pepper
• 1/3 cup olive oil

Pull the zest from the lemon and combine with it’s juice. I zest the lemon into a small bowl, then cut the lemon in half and juice it. Zest is for flavor and some love the taste, others hate it. Experiment for your best results. Remember, zest until you barely see the white of the rind.

In a food processor, add the lemon zest, lemon juice and then pulse to mince the garlic. Open the cans of chickpeas and drain the liquid into a separate container. Pour the drained chickpeas and half the reserved liquid into the food processor and pulse until chopped into a coarse paste.

Add the tahini, parsley, kosher salt, and pepper as recommended or just to match your taste. Traditional tahini amounts are higher than this recipe, but the fat content is high enough, so be careful. I use 5 tablespoons of tahini, 5 small sprigs of parsley, 3 pinches of kosher salt and a smattering of pepper. It’s not chemistry, so experiment!

Blend for no more than 15 seconds. Add the olive oil and blend for another 10 to 20 seconds or until your desired consistency is reached. Over-blending is easy and no one likes runny hummus. Place into a favorite refrigerator container and you’re done.