Creamy Hummus and Beef with a Californio Twist

Bringing the Flavors of California's Spanish History to a Middle Eastern Classic

School’s back in session for most kids in California, so, predictably, we’re also heading into the hottest weather of the year in most parts of the state. (The timing of California’s late summer weather, or “second summer,” always felt cruel when I was a kid—though it did make for fun pool parties for my September birthday.) The good news about our extended heat is that we also have an extended season for the best summer produce, and right now is an ideal time for everything from corn to tomatoes to melons. This week, my kitchen is full of charentais melons, Cal Red peaches, mission figs, and lots and lots of vegetables. I’ll be posting some fun and easy ways to enjoy all this produce in the next month.

The end of summer also poses a cooking conundrum: It’s too hot out to spend much time standing over a stove, but the resumption of normal school and work days means that we all need something filling at the end of the day. My favorite solution to this problem is to make a hearty “snacking dinner” that requires little cooking (or, at least, very little time actually standing next to a hot stove). This week’s recipe for homemade hummus topped with rich, fragrant cooked beef, fits the bill perfectly. The chickpeas simmer unattended for an hour, then are finished in a food processor, and the beef itself only takes about 5 minutes to cook. Throw some pita in the toaster oven, and dinner is ready.

Creamy Hummus and Beef with a Californio Twist

This rich, flavorful dish was inspired by three things: a bag of Rancho Gordo chickpeas I had sitting in my pantry, waiting to be cooked; a recipe for Jerusalem hummus from the Zahav cookbook; and the flavors of some of the dishes made by my friend Elizabeth Poett, which reflect how her ancestors who came to California from Spain once cooked. (A couple of those recipes are in the cookbook I co-wrote with her, The Ranch Table, which comes out October 3rd!)

When Spanish settlers arrived in California, they developed their own, unique cooking style that combined Spanish ingredients with Native Californians’ cooking styles. These dishes often resembled the foods the settlers had also made in Mexico, but they incorporated a variety of ingredients that did better in “California Alta” than in other parts of the Spanish empire, including olives, raisins, and pine nuts. If you have a chance to explore the recipes of these early “Californio” families (as I did for an article a few years ago), you’ll find that some subset of these three ingredients show up in everything from enchiladas to empanadas.

In this recipe, I’ve taken those flavors and added them to the beef that traditionally goes on top of “Jerusalem hummus”—in lieu of the baharat seasoning chef Michael Solomonov calls for in his recipe. I also adapted the hummus recipe itself: The staff at Berkeley’s fantastic Middle East Market, who make my favorite hummus, kindly gave me an estimate of the amounts of tahini and garlic used in their version. I then played with the mix until it was as close as I could get it to their fantastic original. The combination of these two elements ended up tasting even better than I’d imagined they would—clearly Middle Eastern in origin but with a sweet, fragrant, zesty Californio twist.

Serves 4 as a meal (or more as a snack)

For the Hummus
1 cup dried chickpeas
2 teaspoons baking soda
3–4 cloves of garlic
3 tablespoons tahini
1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
½ teaspoon ground cumin

For the Beef Topping
3 tablespoons raisins
Sherry vinegar
3 tablespoons raw pine nuts
Vegetable oil
½ yellow onion, finely diced
½ lb ground beef (ideally grass-fed)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons sliced black olives
Sweet smoked paprika
Ground cinnamon

Make the Hummus:

1. Put the chickpeas in a bowl with 1 teaspoon of the baking soda (to help soften their skins and make them more digestible), add enough water to allow them to double in size, and let them soak overnight.

2. Drain the soaked chickpeas and rinse them. Transfer the chickpeas to a medium-large pot, add the remaining 1 teaspoon of baking soda and enough water to cover the peas by at least 4 inches. Bring the peas to a boil, then lower the temperature to medium-low, skim off any scum that has risen to the surface, and simmer the peas until they are soft, about 1 hour. (Don’t worry if they start to get a bit mushy.)

3. When the chickpeas are very soft, drain them and transfer them to a food processor. Add the garlic, tahini, salt, and cumin, and process everything until it has turned into a very, very smooth mixture. Taste the hummus and adjust the seasonings as you like, then, with the food processor running, slowly pour in enough water to thin the hummus to your desired texture (I use about 1/4 cup).

Make the Beef Topping:

1. Put the raisins in a small bowl and add equal parts sherry vinegar and water to submerge them. Set the raisins aside to plump.

2. In a small pan, gently toast the pine nuts, stirring constantly, until they are fragrant and starting to brown nicely.

3. Heat a thin slick of vegetable oil in a cast-iron skillet, then add the onion and cook, stirring frequently, until the pieces are very soft and are beginning to turn golden in some spots. Add the beef, season it generously with salt and pepper, and cook it, letting it sit against the pan so that parts of the meat brown and caramelize a bit, until it is fully cooked and some areas have developed a slight crust.

4. Drain the raisins and add them to the pan along with the garlic, ½ of the pine nuts, and the sliced olives. Mix everything well, and cook until the garlic no longer smells sharp, about 30 seconds. Season the mixture with a good shake of the paprika and a big pinch of cinnamon and cook, stirring, until the spices are toasted, about 1 minute. Taste the mixture and adjust the seasoning as desired before removing it from the heat.

To Serve:

1. Spoon the hummus into a low, wide bowl, smoothing it with the back of a spoon so that the edges of the mixture are a little higher than the middle.

2. Scoop the beef mixture onto the hummus, then sprinkle on the remaining toasted pine nuts and a bit more paprika.

3. Serve the mixture with freshly toasted pita (or a similar flatbread) for scooping everything up.

From the Archives

The dish above needs something bright and crunchy to balance it out, and the Cucumber and Stone Fruit Salad I posted earlier this summer is an absolutely perfect accompaniment. We’ve been making it with peaches these past few weeks, and they work beautifully!

Photos: Georgia Freedman