Chicken in hummus sauce

Hummus is not just a (heavenly) spread, you can also turn it into a sauce. I first tasted a similar dish in Borj Hammoud, one of Beirut’s busiest neighbourhood, at Abu Hassan’s for breakfast. Their dish is made of chickpeas in hummus sauce. I thought it’s a brilliant idea! So I adapted it and created this recipe. In another version, more true to Abu Hassan’s recipe, I replace the chicken with chickpeas, and the chicken stock with vegetable stock to make it completely plant-based.

Ingredients

Difficulty 
For 2 persons or 4 persons as part of a mezze

  • 400 gr chicken breast
  • 2 pieces of lemon peel
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 5 black peppercorns
  • 1 cube chicken stock
  • 1 garlic clove
  • 250 gr canned chickpeas
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin seeds, and some extra for garnish
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • 50 ml tahini
  • Olive oil
  • Nut bread or Lebanese flatbread to serve

Directions

  1. Place the chicken, lemon peel, peppercorns and bay leaf in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and cook the chicken about 40 minutes.
  2. Dissolve the stock cube in 250 ml hot water.
  3. Add the chickpeas, garlic and cumin to the stock and blitz into a puree.
  4. Fold the tahini and lemon juice in the mixture.
  5. Once the chicken is done, take it out of the water and shred it in thin, small stripes with a fork.
  6. Add the chicken to the sauce and mix well.
  7. Serve the dish luke warm with a drizzle of olive oil, a bit of cumin and the nut bread.

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