When it comes to my life in terms of hummus, there's before Zahav and after.
My before-Zahav hummus life looked like me in college and early adulthood, scooping up the thick, pasty store-bought stuff with pita chips or baby carrots from plastic tubs and feeling full of indifference. I liked that hummus was healthy and filling. For me, it was merely functional food.
Then in 2008 or so, I tried chef Michael Solomonov's hummus at his Philadelphia restaurant, Zahav. Oh…this is hummus, I thought. This is why it inspires such reverence.
His hummus is unbelievably silky with a mellow garlicky note and no acrid taste of citric acid you'd get from the packaged stuff. Instead, the acidity whispers. His hummus is more about the lushness of the chickpeas.
That texture, we all learned when he shared his recipe, came from soaking and cooking the chickpeas in water with baking soda, which softened their skins, and overcooking the legumes to the point of being nearly mushy.
The problem with my post-Zahav hummus life was that I could no longer choke down pre-packaged hummus. Instead, I had to make my own to my tastes or order it from Middle Eastern restaurants if they made it from scratch.
In many of my favorite Middle Eastern restaurants, you'll find hummus served warm or cool and topped with spiced lamb. The cut of lamb and spicing for this dish often vary, depending on the origin of the cook and the cook’s preferences.
I've been craving this dish (sometimes called hummus kawarma, hummus b'lahmeh, or hummus basar) so I wanted to see if I could create a super simplified version. I knew it probably wouldn't taste as complex, but I hoped it would scratch the itch and come together fast on a weeknight.
Thanks to the magic combination of tomato paste, cumin, lamb, and mint, I ended up someplace good. When my husband took his first bite, he said, "I love this kind of sh*t."
So why the cauliflower rice? Well, I always promise you a vegetable, and a bag of frozen cauliflower rice at the supermarket caught my eye recently, so I added it in.
I'm thrilled with how the cauliflower melts into the lamb here — taking on the flavors in the pan and not distracting with its own.
Now, I'm not saying we should swap out cauliflower for rice in general. No way. I love rice. And I love cauliflower. (Funny enough… I've written books about both ingredients!)
But a bag of cauliflower rice has now earned a permanent spot in my freezer. I love that it allows me to boost a meal with a vegetable when the refrigerator coffers look bare.
And now, back to the hummus. After going on and on about how I won't eat packaged hummus, I recently found a brand I like better than most.
It's called esti, and I can find it at my local health food store and supermarket. It's smooth and a little looser than most store-bought hummus. It's lightly lemony but not so much that it distracts from the creaminess of the chickpeas.
In this end, however, this recipe is hummus-brand agnostic. You can use your favorite store-bought version or homemade if you have some on hand.
For this dish, and because it's winter, I like warming the hummus or at least getting it to room temperature, so it doesn't chill down the lamb. If you make hummus from freshly cooked chickpeas, it'll be warm and ready to go. Otherwise, you can just warm it in the microwave.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to MISSION: DINNER to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.