Chickpea VI + Tahini II

The month of February is often associated with Valentine's Day and all things love-related. Regardless of your affection or disdain for this holiday, we can probably all agree that we love food, especially our plant friends.  In honor of plant foods that pair well together, all of our February cartoons will feature plant power couples.

We end our month of plant power couples with the greatest love story of all--chickpea and tahini. As you may recall in our Hummus is a Food Group post:

"Hummus" means "chickpea" in both Arabic and Hebrew, and many folks from the Middle East insist that that hummus is, in its purest form, a smooth spread made from chickpeas and tahini.  Hummus lovers outside of the Middle East, on the other hand, sometimes refer to any smooth bean spread (throw in other ingredients! with or without tahini!) as hummus.

Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi share a strong point of view on tahini's major role in hummus, as illustrated in their Basic Hummus recipe from their cookbook, Jerusalem (via Food52). Personally, we would like to thank them for teaching Westerners how to make a proper batch of hummus.