Red Hummus with Harissa with homemade cooked chickpeas and homemade harissa

👨‍🍳 Method

For the homemade cooked chickpeas ✓ Homemade · or skip – back to store-bought

1. 1
   Soak the chickpeas overnight in plenty of cold water.

   Bowl

   💡Soak in plenty of water, well above what's being soaked: legumes and grains swell and drink water, and whatever sticks out stays hard. Drain well before continuing.
2. 2
   Drain, cover with plenty of unsalted water and cook 1.5–2 hours, skimming off the foam and skins from time to time, until the chickpeas are very soft and crush easily between your fingers.

   ColanderStovePot

   💡Fully cooked chickpeas crush between your fingers with no resistance at all. Chickpeas that stay a little firm make a grainy spread, and no amount of tahini will fix it.
3. 3
   Drain, reserving a cup of the cooking liquid.

   Colander

For the Cooked chickpeas

1. 4
   Drain, reserving a cup of the cooking liquid.

   Colander

For the Tahini sauce

1. 5
   Mix the tahini, lemon juice, garlic and cumin and season with salt.

To assemble

1. 6
   Transfer the tahini sauce to a food processor, add the chickpeas, still warm, and process 3–5 minutes, until it is completely smooth.

   Food processor

   💡Grind the chickpeas while they are still warm: warm chickpeas grind into a smoother cream than cold ones.
2. 7
   Soak the dried peppers 30 minutes in hot water, drain and remove the seeds.

   Bowl
3. 8
   Grind the peppers in a food processor with the garlic, salt and black pepper.

   Food processor

   💡In a food processor, grind in short pulses and check between pulses: it's easy to go from coarse to paste. (Sesame for tahini, on the other hand, is ground continuously.)
4. 9
   Add the oil in a thin stream, while Tahini, until a smooth paste.

   Food processor

   💡The thin stream is everything: fat that goes in too fast can't bind, and the sauce breaks. For mayonnaise and hollandaise, if this happens, start with a fresh yolk and slowly add the broken sauce to it; if the sauce is too thick, thin it with a teaspoon of water.
5. 10
   Add the harissa and process for another minute.

   Food processor
6. 11
   Spread on a plate, make a well in the center and add the olive oil and paprika and a little more of the harissa.