Londoncooking.co.uk

How many tubs of humous get sold in the UK per day?

C’mon – must be at least a million.

To be sure, we’re a nation obsessed with a chickpea dip.

I wonder why – a lot of the supermarket stuff is a bit of a travesty – too lemony, garlicky, to cover up the lack of taste from the key humous ingredients: chick peas and tahini (sesame paste).

Instead of going for this pallid, ersatz humous, try the legendary hummus bros (branches near Holborn, and on Wardour St in Soho).

The bros serve up a more genuine Middle-Eastern rendition of the h-dip. Satisfyingly thick and tasty, they serve it with a choice of meat and vegetarian toppings in the middle -

My tip – the ful (beans) or roast vegetables. The occasional falafel salad one is fantastic too. Oh, and Mexican Beef.

You can take away the humous too, so no need to rely on the bastard pesto or wasabi-flavoured supermarket version in future.

Image by Rain Rabbit

Recently spotted by londoncooking playing an acoustic gig in Camden’s convivial Green Note bar (open mike afternoon – Sundays 1-5pm – nice…) The ever-versatile Vegan Meg here gives a masterclass in humous/hummus-making:

Couldn’t be easier really – so long as you’ve got a mixer. Which I don’t. (Gasp!) Unwilling to wip out the pestle and mortar for the moment, looks like it’s back to hummus bros for me, at least for the moment.

NB: Apparently, Americans call chick peas ‘garbanzo beans‘ – crazy stuff.