Tonight I made another Plenty recipe by Ottolenghi: Hummus with ful. I'd heard that making hummus isn't really difficult, but I had never heard of ful. Still, I braved my uncertainties to prepare this meal, wonderfully simple yet overwhelming in its strong flavours. I soaked the chickpeas overnight, and after boiling them for a couple of hours this afternoon, added tahini, lemon juice, garlic and salt, plus some of the boiling liquid and voilà, hummus is born. A lot of it. So much that my brother said that we could just make a cake out of it all. Or fill a hundred pitta breads. Next, the ful, which was even easier: broad beans, olive oil, lemon juice, cumin, garlic. There was no photo in Plenty, but in the Guardian blog photo, the ful is just as much a paste as the hummus, though in the instructions Ottolenghi doesn't say anything about putting that through the food processor. With some googleing I got the impression that one does indeed serve the beans as beans, disintegrated a little from cooking, so that's what I did. I also left out the onion to serve as well as the egg.
Below you can see my plate, with the hummus spread at the bottom, topped with the ful, some extra olive oil and lemon juice, then garnished with ground paprika and parsley. I also served it with toasted pitta bread. Heavenly! The lemon juice and garlic come through especially strongly thanks to the ful. One plate was enough, it was so filling.
As I keep repeating, it's a simple meal, as well as very nutritious; fibre, zinc and protein from the chick peas, iron, magnesium, manganese, copper, and calcium from the tahini (sesame seeds), broad beans help prevent diseases like Parkinson's and control high blood pressure, plus loads of Vitamin C and calcium from lemon juice, and all the familiar benefits of garlic.
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