HEAVENLY HAZELNUT HUMMUS

Chickpeas are great. But chickpeas and hazelnuts – which look uncannily similar - are divine.

Working with hazelnuts for my recent post on cocktail nuts, I noticed how like chickpeas they are. Both are small and round, yes, but both are also deeply nutty, elegant and creamy.

So here’s to making a heavenly hazelnut hummus to go with roast chicken, sizzling lamb kofta, roasted cauliflower, or just wilted leafy greens in a great dressing.

Adding a couple of ice-blocks while blending is an Ottolenghi recommendation, and does seem to make it creamier and fluffier.

Serve with both chickpeas and hazelnuts on top (I picked mine out of the cocktail nuts, which are now hazelnut-less) for a bit of crunch. And also because whenever you serve a dip or puree you should always give a signpost or a hint as to what’s in it.

HEAVENLY HAZELNUT HUMMUS

• 1 cup toasted hazelnuts, skinned ( see tip below)

• 400 g can chickpeas and liquid

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 1 garlic clove

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

• 1 tsp ground cumin

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• Sea salt and pepper

• 2 ice-blocks

Drain the chickpeas, reserving 150 ml of the canning liquid.

Set aside a few chickpeas and hazelnuts for garnish.

Whiz the hazelnuts in a food processor for 2 minutes.

Add the chickpeas, olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, cumin, cinnamon, sea salt, pepper and 150 ml of the chickpea canning water, and whiz for 2 minutes.

Scrape the mixture down off the sides, add two ice-blocks and whiz again for 3 minutes – you can’t have it too smooth or fluffy.

Serve with chickpeas and roasted hazelnuts.

TO REMOVE HAZELNUT SKINS Spread the hazelnuts out on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes at 190C. Tip the nuts onto a clean tea towel and wrap them up for a couple of minutes to steam. Use the tea towel to rub them together with your hands, and the skins will cling to it, leaving you clean nuts to work with. (And a very messy tea-towel - best to shake the skins off outside).

SERVING SUGGESTION: LAMB KOFTA. I went a bit overboard here with the herbs, AND yoghurt with more herbs chopped through it, AND chopped tomato with more herbs, but it was very nice.

Lamb kofta

Serves 4

750 g coarsely minced lamb or good lamb, beef or pork sausages, skinned

1 small onion

2 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp dried mint

1 tbsp chopped fresh mint

sea salt and pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

Grate the onion, then squeeze out excess liquid.

Mix the meat with the onion, cumin, coriander and dried and fresh mint, sea salt and pepper, squishing it with your hands, which will help the fat bind the meat together.

Roll into long, round sausage shapes, then pat down and flatten to be a square-sided sausage, if you know what I mean. That way, they will cook evenly and turn easily.

Brush with oil and grill, or fry in a hot pan until nicely browned and all a-sizzle outside, and just done inside.

Serve on a pond of hazelnut hummus with heaps of herbs, some diced ripe tomato and herby yoghurt. No need to serve as much of all that as I did.

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#  If buying good minced meat is a bit problematic – so much of it is extruded into a paste with no textural interest – just use your favourite sausages – lamb or beef or pork. Peel off the skins, break them out, and reform into kofta.

# If you’re barbecuing, then form the meat into sausages, and press metal skewers along their length, tamping the meat around the skewer. And don’t burn yourself on the skewers.

#  Wedges of lemon would not go astray.

Thanks for dropping by! And special thanks to Terry Durack for putting up with a very loud little food processor that sounds like an angry hornet, while he was trying to write up a review. Two of the great truths of working-from-home are that a/ it’s great that you can prep dinner during the day, inbetween tasks, and b/ some of that prep is bloody noisy.

I would also like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. I fully support the Uluru Statement from the Heart, and for an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice to be enshrined in Australia’s Constitution. It’s about time, folks.