Roasted Garlic Hummus

Hummus is so versatile and simple to make at home. I love to spread it on toast, followed by a poached egg and avocado. My daughter loves it with picky things like in the above picture. Sometimes she'll just ask for the pot, but each to their own. This roasted garlic version is mild in flavour. That's down to the roasting of the cloves, raw garlic would be a lot more intense.

But how can you make a delicious smooth hummus at home? My trick is to pre-boil the chickpeas for ten minutes. This is just enough time to make the skins float to the top of the water. Then I just scoop them out and discard them. Removing the skins makes the it a lot smoother in texture and is much quicker than pre-soaking dried chickpeas.

Roasting the garlic is the part that takes the longest, everything else come together quickly. You can do this part ahead of time and simply keep it covered in the fridge until ready to use. I don't use Tahini in my hummus, mainly because I don't make it enough and it would just be one of those jars that sits in my cupboard for a year. But if you want to, just add a tablespoon.

Roasted Garlic Hummus

Serves: 4Prep time: 3 minsCook time: 40 minsTotal time: 43 mins

Ingredients

• 400g tin chickpeas, drained
• 2 whole garlic bulbs
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Half tsp each of salt & pepper
• Juice of half a lemon
• 1 tsp sugar
• Optional 1 tbsp Tahini

Directions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 180c/gas mark 4. Chop the tops off your garlic bulbs (just a few mm) leaving the inside cloves exposed. Pop onto a tray and drizzle with olive oil. Bake for 30 mins.
2. Whilst garlic is in the oven, drain your chickpeas and add them to a pan with some water. Boil for 10 minutes. Remove from the heat, you will see that the skins will have floated to the surface. Discard the skins and drain and rinse the chickpeas. Set aside.
3. Once garlic is cooked, squeeze the cloves into a food processor with the drained chickpeas, lemon juice, salt, pepper and sugar. If you're adding Tahini, pop this in too.
4. Begin to blend and in a gentle stream add the olive oil until you have your desired texture. I add around 6 tablespoons worth and it works out great.
5. Serve immediately or keep in an airtight container in the fridge for four days.