Hummus with Hibiscus Muhamara

This post puts emphasis on two different Arabic dips, one very well known in the western world, Hummus and one that is not, in fact its not even very wide spread within the Arab world, Muhamara. They are also tied as second place when it comes to my faveriot arabic dips, #1 being Mutabal (roasted eggplant dip.) For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past 5 years, hummus is a dip made from chickpeas and sesame which in the past few years has gained a lot of popularity in the United States as a healthy, protein packed, low fat food. I kinda hated hummus until I moved to Bahrain, in fact the first time I tried hummus and actually liked it was on Thanksgiving, my junior year of high school at a small Yemeni restaurant in Oman (yeah, not a traditional thanksgiving dinner when I look back on it) and was unaware of what I was dipping my bread into.
Unfortunately, 80% of hummus found in the United States is just terrible and tastes nothing like the Hummus found in the Middle East, due to a 2 reasons:
#1 Over complicating flavors- The flavor of hummus should be clean, garlicky, slightly acitic and slightly nutty, from the tahina. The worst thing you can add to hummus, which many people do is cumin. Hummus has a very bright flavor, one that is relatively light one the palate and is meant to contrast with more bold flavored foods. Cumin is used usually with heavier flavors and fatty ingredients that can stand up to its bold flavor, when adding it to something with such a light flavor, it doesn't pair and mix with the flavors, but overpowers the whole dish, causing the hummus that was at first the product of a simple mixture of flavors to taste like nothing but cummin. The same goes with ingredients like tobasco sauce, sriracha, pimenton, garam masala, pretty much any ingredient that has a supper abrasive flavor.
#2 The want to have texture. Not to say that it is a bad thing to have texture in the hummus, but the problem with almost all recipes I have seen that leave the chickpeas in the hummus chunky is that it would either say to under pure it or to just puree half of the chickpeas and then pulse in the other half. The thing that makes hummus creamy is the right balance of tahina, oil, acid (lemon), chickpeas and liquid and blending it enough not only to puree the chickpeas but also to emulsify the fats, acid and solids. Under pureeing would not let the ingredients emulsify, so though you would get the texture you want, it would be very pasty, unpleasant and thin. The later technique would offset the balance of the solids in the mixture, causing it to not emulsify correctly. If you do desire a hummus with more texture, I would suggest, once the hummus is made adding in an additional 1/4 cup of cooked chickpeas and pulsing it in or at the end, folding in 1/4 cup of finely chopped walnuts or toasted sesame seeds.
The lesser common of the two dips, muhammara, a dip that originates in Syria made traditionally from roasted red bell pepper, walnuts and pomegranate molasses. Muhamamara is not very popular in Bahrain, nor the United States, (I don't get why, trendy American eaters would be all over this stuff) I have maybe had it twice prior to making this recipe, one time in a cafe called Levantine near my house in Amwaj Bahrain and one at a local Lebanese restaurant here in Orlando. It is very different than one would expect it to taste, it is really creamy from the wallnuts yet very acitic, sweet almost juicy from the bell pepper. Now, this recipe is slightly different from a traditional recipe, Like said before, traditionally pomegranate molassas is added, which is the juice of a pomegranate reduced until the consistency of molasses, hence the name. The flavor of it is slightly sweet, supper bitter and kinda sour. I found, after a couple tries replicating muhammara that hibiscus, in a concentrated form yields the same flavor without as much sweetness and gives off a really nice maroon color to the muhamarra, I actually preffer the flavor that Hibiscus gives it. I had no walnuts in my kitchen, but pecans work int he same way, so I used those.
 I think that these two, when together compliment each other very well, as the hummus is very light in flavor while the muhammara is very bold in flavor. Think of it like the packaged hummus that is topped with roasted red peppers except fresher in flavor.

½ cup of dried chickpeas, soaked overnight (in the same fashion as in my felafel recipe)

2 cloves of garlic, minced

¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons of tahina

3 tablespoons of cold water

Juice of 2 lemons

½ teaspoon of salt

Place the chickpeas in a medium sauce pan and add enough water to cover by 2 inches, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until supper tender, you should be able to mash one with a fork, about 30-40 minutes, depending on many things, size and freshness being a couple, its better to over cook them than under cook them.

Drain them, place in a food processor and let cool for about 10 minutes, you want them to still be slightly warm. Pulse the chickpeas to grind very fine.

Add in the rest of the ingredients and puree away for at least 5 minutes, 10 would be even better, this does two things, firstly it makes the hummus very smooth, secondly the most whipping it gets, the more emulsification happens between the olive oil, oil in the tahini, water, lemon juice and even the chickpeas themselves, leaving the hummus creamer each minuet.

Hibiscus Muhamara

1 large sweet bell pepper, yellow, red and orange all work perfectly fine, when available, the red ones result in the best color

2 cloves of garlic, minced

¼ cup of extra virgin olive oil

¼ cup of dried hibiscus petals

3 tablespoons of boiling water

½ cup of walnuts or pecans

2 tablespoons of panko bread crumbs

½ teaspoon of smoked paprika

1 tablespoon of water

Roast the pepper for 20 minutes at 500 degrees

Preheat a dry skillet on high heat and cook the pepper on all sides until the skin turns black, this takes about a minuet per side. Let cool, remove the seeds, stem and skin and cut into a rough 1 inch dice, combine with the garlic and olive oil, let sit together for 10 minutes even overnight.

While you let the pepper marinate in the oil and garlic, soak the hibiscus petals in the boiling water for 10 minutes as well.

While both the pepper and hibiscus are sitting all idle, toss the nuts into a dry skillet, let toast on high heat for about 5 minutes, stirring often.

Pulse the nuts with the panko into a semi coarse powder in a food processor.

Add in the pepper with all of the oil and garlic, hibiscus water along with half of the rehydrated petals, smoked paprika and water and puree until smooth. Like I said, it is prettier when made with a red pepper.

Serve both drizzled with more olive oil and flat bread, I usually like frozen, prepared naan, but pita and pita chips work just as well.