Greetings Gastronauts this is Keef Cooks, I'm Keef and today I'm going to do a trio
of Eastern Mediterranean Middle East goodies.
I'm going to make hummus and baba ganoush and pitta bread.
[ MUSIC ]
So these things are common to y’know, most of the countries in that region
so I'm not going to get involved in any arguments about exactly who invented what.
Hummus I can't believe that I haven't done this recently it's - it's about six years
since I did it and that original video is really not good at all. So that's going.
Also I'm going to make baba ganoush which is an aubergine – eggplant – puree.
And also I'm going to make the standard kind of flatbread pitta bread that goes with it.
If you enjoy this video, give it a like share subscribe etc, and let's get on with it – hummus,
baba ganoush and pitta bread. I'm going to make the dough
first for the flatbreads because that takes longest what with rising etc.
So I've got 375 grams of plain all-purpose flour, I've got 250 ml of lukewarm water,
two teaspoons of active dried yeast, one teaspoon of salt,
one tablespoon of sugar and one tablespoon of olive oil.
Mix it all together - you can use a stand mixer if you want but we're trying to save on electricity.
And then just half the water in there - get that mixed in.
Okay we've mixed all the water in now as well as we can with the wooden spoon.
And now you need to get your hands in to finish it
off I really could do with a drop more water. Sorry.
And now knead it for about 10 minutes till it's smooth and elastic.
So there we go, nice ball of dough lightly covered in oil and the bowl covered in plastic film.
I'll leave this in a warm place until it's doubled in volume and that might take about
an hour, might take more, might take less. I'm going to make the hummus now and this is
one of the easiest things on the planet actually. You need 240 grams drained weight of chickpeas –
garbanzos. So that can overall is 400 grams but when it's drained it's 240 of actual edible stuff.
And then you need 125 grams of tahini which is a ground sesame paste.
If you get it in a jar like that and have used some of it, it's likely, or even if you've used
none of it, it's likely that the contents will sink to the bottom make a very thick paste.
So you really need to get it all out and give it a good stir so you're not missing any good stuff.
Three tablespoons of lemon juice - that's the juice of one and a half lemons.
And two cloves of garlic and a pinch of salt. So I need to mince those, trim the ends off,
peel the skin off and whack it in the crusher.
Then we'll drain the chickpeas, garbanzos, and if you like you can use that liquid.
You can make meringues out of that - that is aquafaba which is used by vegans instead of eggs.
We might need a bit of that water to loosen the hummus, we'll see.
And then everything else and yeah I know I'm cheating - I'm using ready cooked
chickpeas because oh it's energy use again. Y’know I don't want to have something going
for hours and hours just to cook it. Pinch of salt and the tahini. If anybody
ever tries to sell you hummus without tahini, that is not hummus, that is chickpea puree.
Not the same thing at all - you've got to have the tahini.
And it's quite easy to get hold of now, it's carried by mainstream supermarkets, so you
shouldn't have too much bother getting some. Right, lid on whizz it.
[ WHIZZIN ]
I just remembered what I should have done is reserved about a dozen chickpeas to
put on the top of it as decoration. But too late now. So that's almost
the consistency I want - I want it fairly smooth but with a little bit of bite to it.
So I think a little bit more of the liquid.
[ MORE WHIZZIN ]
Right, a little taste.
Oh yeah, that'll do for me. Now to serve it up just transfer it to a nice looking bowl.
Flatten the top and tidy up the edge. Now I've got some smoked paprika -
it's actually Spanish pimentón de la vera which is fantastic stuff.
I bought it online - I'll put a link below if you want to try it.
Okay and then just drizzle some olive oil around the edge.
And if you have got any whole chickpeas, just place them artistically on the top.
But I haven't, as y’know. So that's the hummus done.
Okay there's the dough nicely risen. And that took - oh it's actually had
two hours but it was, I think, ready after one. So I'm just going to use half of it today, so
that'll make me four flatbreads. A bit of flour on the worktop.
Just going to weigh this – 575. About 280 grams is what we need.
Knead, hahaha.
And this will stay alive in the fridge for a few days. Okay so now I need to
divvy this into four pieces. Roll these into a nice smooth ball,
then we'll roll them into circular discs.
I've got a baking sheet with greaseproof paper and flour on that.
So I'll pop our proto pittas on there and we'll cover that with a clean cloth.
And put it somewhere warm and leave it for at least an hour, maybe an hour and a half.
So now I'm going to make the baba ganoush. So you need aubergines – eggplants.
I've got one and a half because I got half left over from something else.
Two cloves of garlic. Optionally a tablespoon of tahini.
The juice of one lemon, a couple of small handfuls of mint and flat leaf parsley - part of that is
for garnish and more garnish is some pomegranate seeds because they look like little jewels.
Now what we need to do is burn the heck out of these.
And you can do this - its best to do it over a naked flame,
so on your barbecue or grill. I'm going to do it on a gas burner.
If you can't manage those things, you can do it in the oven or under the y’know,
the grill, broiler in your oven. It gets messy so I'm going to put
some silver foil around the gas burner to y’know try and limit the mess.
Turn the gas on full - you'll need a pair of tongs to handle the aubergines with.
Two clicks to make sure they work and pop your aubergines over the flame.
Turn them every five minutes or so. You really want to get them charred all over
and you can speed up the process by using a blow torch if you want.
And eventually the charring will turn almost to like ash white ash.
The aubergine itself will collapse,
at which point take them off the heat and stick them in a bowl or on a plate to cool down.
Okay let's...let's do this.
So we just want to get the flesh out I'll scoop it out somehow
and try not to get any of that burnt skin.
Oh it smells like a bonfire! This could take a while, come back in a bit.
Well that's all I got - it's not a lot really, got a lot more skin than flesh.
I might reduce the amount of other things that I put in. First thing you want to do is to squeeze it as
I said before. Aubergines eggplants they're just packed full of water.
So I'll squeeze that out through this muslin cloth.
Probably just going to get one serving out of this so I'm glad that I made the hummus as well.
Okay, a little bit of minced garlic, a little bit of mint, a little bit of
flat leaf parsley, a little bit of lemon juice.
Did I say that's controversial, [Tahini] optional? Some people use it, some people don't.
Bit of...pepper.
Bit of salt.
Bit of a mash with a fork.
I'll just squeeze this through a sieve because it's quite fibrous and we want to break those down.
Well that's a ludicrously small amount of baba ganoush.
Put it in a small bowl to make it look bigger. Little bit of garnish.
Some restaurants would charge you a huge amount of money for that.
So I've got my cast iron griddle plate heating up and it wants to be really hot. No oil,
just heat and cook it on one side for 30 seconds.
Then turn it over and leave it for two or three minutes and it should puff up into a sphere.
Now it's taste test time with…ME!
[ CHEERIN ]
And here we go a nice bit of pitta bread
with a beautiful pocket in the middle. Oh yeah, I'm really pleased with
these breads. They really worked well. All right let's pack a bit of hummus in there.
That is magnificent and vegetarian - possibly vegan - I always get caught
out when I say stuff is vegan because I put maybe chicken stock or something in it.
But I can't think of any animal by-product - maybe yeast?
I'll just try a little bit of the moutabal. Mrs Keef Cooks
loves this stuff a lot more than I do. So it's not bad though she'll like that.
So there we go - three Middle Eastern - Eastern Mediterranean treats.
Hope you enjoyed it, thanks for watching, and see you next time.
[ MUSIC ]