Ingredients
1 can pre-cooked butterbeans (430g, around 230g of beans when drained). Keep the draining liquid to slacken the hummus with
1 small clove garlic roughly chopped
1 tbsp lemon juice
45ml good olive oil
Salt, pepper to taste. Other seasonings also to taste - I used 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin and same of smoked paprika which worked well with the beans
1. Pile beans, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice, 40ml of the water from the beans and the olive oil into a processor or blender. Actually I hold back some of the liquid and add it once I see what the texture is like - it seems to vary from time to time
2. Blitz until smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning/lemon as needed. If the mixture is too firm, add some more of the water fro the beans to slacken it
3. Put into a bowl, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle dukkah around it – if you have it.
Method
So it is a Saturday in early December, the Eldest has left for France for the ski season, the Boy is at work all day and the Other Offspring are at dance or with friends. I am alone in the house, having actually been organised for once and started off a Cheat's Sourdough loaf the previous evening in anticipation of having people around for lunch. But now it transpires it is just me - and yet I have this still warm fabulously crusty and chewy loaf of bread sitting on the counter top just begging to be eaten.
What to have with it? Too nice for a sandwich, it really needs to star alongside whatever else you are having - until it is used for toast, in which case have it with anything! Some hummus I think - but none in the fridge. Fortunately I have used this recipe many times before or Butter Bean Hummus. A savoury alternative to a Chickpea hummus, which has the great advantage of using only store-cupboard ingredients (well, my store-cupboard anyway). So butterbean Hummus and fresh bread for lunch, with a handful of cherry tomatoes it is. Sorted.
Using butter beans is something I have done often before, and I first came across it at Nopi, one of the Ottolenghi restaurants, where it was served with Dukkah and Sesame Lavosh. We subsequently used it as part of a mezze platter for one of the Gransden Pop-up restaurants that we occasionally organise. So it has history, and I like it, and it's simple and delicious and I usually have all the ingredients to hand (there is no tahini in it which is usually the problem if making conventional hummus.
I may post the recipe for sesame lavosh on here as well - I haven't made them recently but they are a great make-at-home cracker biscuit type thing which is useful to have around at Christmas time.