Chickpea dip with lemon, chives and smoked paprika

Recipe & Photo By: Colleen Johnson

This dip is excellent with crudités, crackers or pita bread, but it’s equally good used as a vegetarian spread for a sandwich.  Though I’ve used dry chickpeas in this recipe, you could also go with canned chickpeas to speed things up, substituting 2 1/2 cups of canned chickpeas for the cooked chickpeas and 1/2 cup of the liquid from the can for the cooking liquid.

Makes approx. 3 cups

Ingredients:

• 1 cup dried chickpeas
• 5 cups water
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/4 tsp. ground cumin
• 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
• 1 tsp. smoked paprika
• 1 tsp. sea salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• zest and juice of 1 lemon
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1 tbsp. chives, chopped

Method:

Cook the dried chickpeas in 5 cups of water in a covered pot over medium low heat until tender, about 2 hours.  Set aside the chickpeas to cool.  Once cool, drain the chickpeas, reserving a 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid.  Using a blender, purée the garlic, cumin, coriander, smoked paprika, salt, black pepper, zest, lemon juice, chickpeas, 1/2 cup of cooking liquid, and olive oil.  Blend the mixture until smooth, scraping down the sides of the blender as necessary.  Stir in the chopped chives and serve, garnishing with more smoked paprika and olive oil if desired.