Hummus 3 Ways

Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a small baking pan with foil. Cut off the top of the head of garlic so that each clove shows a little. Place the garlic and the hatch chiles on the pan and drizzle with olive oil (don’t be shy on the garlic!). Take another small piece of foil and place the olives in the center with the sprigs of thyme. Wrap the olives in a tight package and place on the baking pan. Roast for 20 minutes and then turn on the broiler for the last 5-10 minutes or until the chiles and garlic look nice and toasted. Turn the chiles at least once. Remove and cool. Meanwhile, combine the chickpeas, tahini, remaining chopped clove of garlic, the warm water, lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of olive oil, cumin, and the salt in a food processor. Pulse until creamy. Take out 2/3 of the hummus.

When the chiles are ready, slice them down the middle. Remove the seeds and peel off the charred skin. Blend them with the first 1/3 of hummus along with the cilantro. Clean the bowl and put in another 1/3 of the hummus. Discard the thyme sprigs from the olive mixture and put the olives in to blend. Clean the bowl again and put in the last 1/3 of hummus. Squeeze each clove of garlic out into the food processor and blend. Top the chili hummus with extra cilantro, the olive hummus with chopped olives, and the roasted garlic hummus with paprika. And for the final touch, heat up some pita bread for dipping.

I took the skins off the chickpeas, but I’m not sure how worth it this step is. It’s pretty time consuming, and I’m not sure you would be able to tell once they’re blended in the food processor. But if you feel the need to do this, here’s a little trick: spread out the chickpeas on paper towels and place another paper towel on top. Gently rub the the chickpeas around and the skins will start to loosen/fall off. It won’t get them all, so you’ll still have some squeezing to do. Let me know if you have any suggestions!