Saveur Cooks Authentic American - Editors Of Cook's Illustrated Magazine [10]
2. Drain chickpeas, reserving cooking liquid. To the bowl of a food processor, add chickpeas and 5 cloves garlic and process for about 2 minutes. Add ¾ cup of the cooking liquid, along with 1¼ cups tahini, ½ cup lemon juice, and 2 tbsp. olive oil; season with salt. Process, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl, until the mixture is very smooth, about 8 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap; refrigerate until flavors have melded, about 4 hours.
3. Bring hummus to room temperature. Finely chop the remaining clove of garlic and sprinkle with salt. Using the side of a knife, scrape the garlic against the work surface while chopping occasionally to make a paste; set aside. In a small bowl whisk together the remaining tahini, lemon juice, 3½ tbsp. ice water, and the garlic paste until the mixture is creamy; season with salt and set aside.
4. To serve, place hummus in a bowl and make a small indentation in the middle using the back of a spoon. Pour the reserved tahini mixture into the indentation and garnish hummus with olive oil, sumac or paprika, parsley, and pickles. Serve with pita.
Family Recipe
When my brother married a Polish-American girl named Rachael, my Palestinian-Lebanese mother held her breath. When they named their son after a baseball hero rather than my brother, she held her tongue. But when Rachael proudly served “black bean hummus” at a family party, my mother let it all out. “Hummus with black beans?” she said. “Why do Americans have to mix everything up until you can’t even tell what is what? Hummus is just hummus!” That made me wonder what truly makes hummus hummus, so I polled my Arab-American friends and received passionate responses as to what genuine hummus was and was not. Overwhelmingly, the responses were in favor of the traditional combination of ingredients—chickpeas, tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. In an act of Middle Eastern diplomacy, Rachael asked my mother how to make hummus the “real way.” My mom quickly listed the ingredients, giving no measurements or proportions. Always an advocate for peace, I decided to write down the recipe for Rachael. After gathering advice from family and friends, and testing and tasting ten batches, I distilled a formula for classic hummus, one that made my mother proud.
—Alia Yunis
Soups and Stews
A student at Le Ferrandi culinary school in Paris tends to a simmering pot of veal stock under the watchful eye of his professor.
First, you brown some onions, celery, and bacon. Next, you pour in stock or water and maybe a little wine, scraping up the f lavorful caramelized bits before adding meat or vegetables. Then you stir, season, taste, and wait. As the pot simmers and your kitchen fills with aromas, sharp f lavors mellow and subtle ones intensify, until it all comes together in a beautiful union. Creamy corn chowder, French onion soup bubbling beneath gooey Gruyère, Polish pork and sauerkraut stew—such dishes feed the soul, warm the body, and leave us content.
Burgundy-Style Beef Stew
Boeuf à la Bourguignonne
There are many ways to say “beef stew” in French. In Provence, you might ask for daube; in Belgium, it’s called carbonnade and is made with dark beer. But the most famous of these regional stews is Burgundy’s, made with red wine and cooked slowly, until the flavors fully meld and the beef becomes meltingly tender.
8 oz. slab bacon, cut into ½ -inch slices and cut crosswise into ¼ -inch pieces
2 tbsp. canola oil
2½ lbs. trimmed boneless beef chuck, cut into 2-inch cubes Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 large carrot, roughly chopped
1 large yellow onion, roughly chopped
1 rib celery, roughly chopped
2 tbsp. tomato paste
3 cloves garlic, roughly chopped
¼ cup flour
2 cups beef or veal stock
1 750-ml. bottle full-bodied red wine, such as merlot
1 bouquet garni (1 sprig each parsley and thyme and 1 bay leaf, tied together with