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Restaurant Remix: Zahav's Turkish buttered hummus
Photo l Felicia D'Ambrosio
Restaurant Remix: Zahav's Turkish buttered hummus
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| Photo l Felicia D'Ambrosio |
One night, when Israeli wunderkind Michael Solomonov ran the show at Marigold Kitchen, he turned his kitchen and staff over to fellow chef Ana Sortun for a dinner celebrating her new cookbook, Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean. The meal started with a variety of mezze (small bites) that Sortun serves at her Boston restaurant, Oleana. Crisply layered spinach falafel with pickled ramps brought more yummy noises than was appropriate out of an adult dining table, and Turkish-style steak tartare lured with aromatic teases of spice. The most-coveted mezze, however, was a warm ball of butter-stuffed hummus wrapped in basturma, a dry-cured, thin-sliced beef.
Nearly two years later, Solomonov is chef and owner of one of 2008's most-lauded restaurants, Zahav. A variety of hummus is served with laffa, a unparelled bread fired to order in the brick taboon oven, as a palate-warming first course. Like the country cousin of Sortun's cosmopolitan basturma-wrapped balls, Turkish buttered hummus makes an appearance as a hot dip, glistening with pale yellow pools of everyone's favorite fat. Though I wouldn't even attempt laffa — without a 750-degree brick oven and a training course in Israel, why even bother? — the Turkish hummus is just too good not to try at home.
From Spice:
This recipe was inspired by my trip to Cappadocia, in the center of Turkey... In Cappadocia, they make hummus without tahini, and they use butter instead of olive oil because of its quality and availability.
Ana's recipe uses dried and soaked chickpeas, which you cook and then pulse in the food processor while still hot. Since I am fundamentally lazy and wanted to get to the "hot buttered" part as quickly as possible, I used canned chickpeas (which were one dollar a can at the Acme, natch).
After the jump, check out my interpretation of Zahav's, and Ana Sortun's, Turkish Buttered Hummus. You're on your own for laffa-imitation.
Turkish Buttered Hummus
(adapted from Ana Sortun, p. 200 in SPICE, and Mike Solo's version at Zahav)
Go Get This:
Two 16-ounce cans chickpeas (also called garbanzos), drained and liquid reserved
Two cloves garlic, diced small or mushed through a garlic press
7 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces
Several glugs extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of one lemon
Two teaspoons cumin
Salt and pepper to taste
Now Do This:
In a very small sauté pan, melt a tablespoon of the butter. When it foams, add the diced garlic and gently cook until soft. Remove from heat.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
In a food processor, combine the chickpeas, six tablespoons of the cut butter, the juice of one lemon and cumin. Add the olive oil a glug at a time as you begin to process the mixture. If more liquid is needed for through blending, use some of the water the chickpeas were packed in. Blend some more. Blend the hell out of it until smooth and creamy. You could leave the food processor on max and go take a shower and the hummus would be better for it.
Turn the machine off and taste the hummus. Add salt and pepper to taste, or more olive oil if it needs it. Blend!
Use a rubber spatula to pour the hummus into a small ovenproof casserole dish. Smooth into an even layer. Dot the top of the hummus with the reserved pieces of butter. Sprinkle with a bit more cumin.
Bake in the 350 degree oven until butter is melted and hummus is hot all the way through.
Serve hot with pita, raw vegetables, laffa and olives. Pretend you're at Zahav, or on a pastoral dairy farm in Cappadocia.
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