Recipe: Vegan white bean hummus from chef Ottolenghi – 10/02/2023 – Marcão Recipes

I got yelled at by a reader for last week’s recipe, which I inadvertently named “Chinese pork.”

The guy said I don’t know anything about Chinese food. Correct. He said that the Chinese would never make a dish like that, among other reasons, because it had too much meat. Then I don’t know, because I don’t understand Chinese food.

No joke, I never intended to make authentically Chinese food. My, let’s say, pedagogical objective was to show that it is possible to improvise delicious food with unknown ingredients in a new environment — in my case, England.

The food was good (you can make the recipe without fear), but I failed in communication. I will therefore kneel in the corn.

For this column, I chose and followed a chef’s recipe to the letter.

The chef is Yotam Ottolenghi, an Israeli based in London, where he has several restaurants. In Brazil, he is not as popular as Jamie Oliver or Nigella Lawson, but here he is revered.

He makes food with plenty of olive oil, fresh vegetables, grains and spices that nod to the Mediterranean and Middle East.

The recipe I chose, white bean hummus with pepper paste and walnuts, has ingredients common in Brazil. It’s vegan and served cold at the table — great for the supernatural and increasingly frequent heat.

I know that hummus, in Hebrew and Arabic, means chickpeas — something that is not in the recipe. Can you call it hummus? Look: if the Israeli celebrity chef calls, why would I say no?

The English recipe calls for “butter beans”. They are white beans, sold cooked and canned. Feel free to cook broad beans, but I recommend replacing them with cooked white beans, available commercially in long-life packaging.

Processed into a puree, it will be like English broad beans. It has some seasoning, but it’s very mild, it won’t interfere. And the quantity (247 g drained) is similar to that of the English can (235 g).

Did I change anything in the recipe? I changed, but only for myself. Ottolenghi says to discard the garlic clove fried in olive oil from the hummus, but I don’t do that. I blended it with the beans.

In the recipe that follows, I left it as the original. Go with faith, that it is authentic, has pedigree and works.

WHITE BEAN HOMMUS WITH ROASTED PEPPERS AND NUTS

Difficulty: easy
Performance: 4 portions (starter) or 2 portions (main course)
Ingredients:

Hummus

• 50 ml of olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, skin on, lightly crushed
• 1 sprig of thyme
• 1 box of white beans (380 g)
• Salt to taste

Chili paste

• 3 red peppers (or 2 large ones)
• 4 unpeeled garlic cloves
• 1 finger pepper
• 1/2 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
• 30 walnuts, peeled and roughly chopped
• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
• Salt to taste

Way of doing:

1. Heat the oven to 220 ºC (medium-high).

2. Drain the beans, reserving the liquid.

3. Heat the olive oil over low heat. Fry the crushed garlic and thyme sprig for about 3 minutes. Discard the garlic. Wait for the oil to cool. Reserve the thyme and 1 tablespoon of the olive oil.

4. Blend the beans with 1 tablespoon of their liquid and the remaining olive oil, until you obtain a smooth paste that is not too thick (add more liquid if necessary). Transfer to a bowl, season with salt and set aside.

5. Roast the unpeeled peppers, pepper and garlic. After 20 minutes, remove the pepper and garlic, transferring them to a sealed bag or jar. Leave the peppers for another 15 minutes, until the skin burns, and transfer them to the same container.

6. Toast the nuts lightly in a frying pan until they start to give off a popcorn smell.

7. When the roasted vegetables are cool, remove the skin, stems and seeds from the peppers and peppers. Remove the skin from the garlic.

8. In a blender or processor, blend these vegetables quickly until you obtain a chunky paste. Transfer to a bowl and mix half the walnuts, paprika, vinegar and salt to taste.

9. Assemble a plate with the hummus and, in the center, the pepper paste. Drizzle with the reserved olive oil, sprinkle with the remaining walnuts and garnish with the thyme sprig. Serve with bread, at room temperature.

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