When I travel I try to keep costs low by going to grocery stores and sometimes I’ll discover something new. While in the UK I gravitated towards hummus and discovered there was a lot better way to make it than the way I had been doing it.

I rarely had hummus that was made by anyone else’s hand, it’s just chickpeas and stuff, I can do that myself, why bother buying it. But this really opened my eyes to what hummus could be; silky, smooth, creamy and a lot more like tahini.   So when I got back home I started with some research. I was mostly after that dreamy texture, to achieve it one must either boil the chickpeas longer still they are softer or peel them of their thin papery skins. Obviously doing a combination of the two is fantastic, but I like to stick with peeling them. It can be time consuming but something about schluffing that husk off knowing you are doing it to achieve divine hummus is so worth it.

Now that I knew the secrets to perfect hummus I wanted to explore with the flavors; roasted garlic, red pepper, beet and lemon, but I was also after something different. I wanted my hummus to bring forth the flavors of my other favorite chickpea snack, roasted chickpeas. I first came across roasted chickpeas while traveling in Turkey, they have these little street carts with paper cones of hot crispy chickpeas, tossed in olive oil and spices and roasted till dry and crunchy.

This hummus captures both of those things, it’s smooth, rich with tahini, warmed with spices and notes of caramelization. I’m in the habit of always peeling my chickpeas, but it’s probably not important to this particular recipe since they get roasted and then the beans are a little dry. I do highly recommend that it sits for a few minutes half way through blending so the beans have a chance to soak up liquid and soften.