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The hummus SHOP
Buy tahini, chickpeas, olive oil, falafel mix., halva & more.
Using Baking Soda
When cooking chickpeas, baking soda is used to soften the peas. Some say it affects the nutritional value and the flavor of the hummus. I tend to disagree.
One of the comments I do remember out of the batch I accidentally deleted earlier today (see the last post), was about baking soda. The person who wrote it noted that it has negative effect on the nutritional value, and also gives the hummus a soapy after taste.
He/she specifically mentioned the content of vitamin B which is presumed to be lost while cooking when using baking soda.
Well, I heard that claim before, and did some research of my own. As for the Vitamins - although chickpeas are certainly rich of them when raw, you shouldn’t expect much of it to survive the long cooking. Much of the nutritional value attributed to hummus, actually comes from the tahini - as far as vitamins are concerned. The cooked chickpeas are still rich in minerals, though.
The soapy flavor thing is, indeed, a possible side-effect of baking soda overuse. The secret, naturally, is to use a small amount of it - which all good hummus places do, with great success. You CAN use a pressure cooker, as one of the readers suggested a while ago. But if you don’t have one the baking soda is a must, or else the chickpeas would never be soft enough to achieve that famous creamy texture.
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4 Responses to “Using Baking Soda”
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Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment on my blog. I especially appreciate the advice on cooking my own dried chickpeas and then making the hummus. I will use the baking soda (in small amounts) as suggested.
I have to say, I am just in awe of your hummus blog. That is devotion!
You’re welcome, and thanks for the compliment. I think it shows hummus is a passion of mine, ha?
I have 700g of chickpeas soaking downstairs and stumbled across this website when I searched for a good hummus recipe. As Karin says, this website demonstrates an admirable devotion! Extremely impressive! I will make hummus according to your recipe tomorrow. Fingers crossed!
I just ran downstairs and changed the water and added some baking soda. The power of the internet to educate - eh? One tiny dilemma though - since I’ll be dealing with already-soaked chickpeas, by how much should I alter the chickpea quanity in order to avoid messing up the ratio in the recipe? The recipe calls for 2 cups of completely raw chickpea. Would that equate to around 4 cups of the soaked variety, since they swell to double their original size? Thanks!