Allright, here’s a thread for the delights of late summer foods. Talk amongst yourselves here regarding what you love, share recipes, etc.
I suggest, however, that we keep this discussion for food we have ourselves cooked or tried, not for theoretical recipes we don’t know or haven’t proven, no matter how tasty they look. Perhaps we’ll start a separate thread for those, if there’s interest.
For me late summer is about fresh corn on the cob, ripe berries, incredible tomatoes, and grilled everything. Since the spring garlic has started to dry out and gain its punch by now, too, what could go better with all that than a creamy, garlic-loaded side of hummus and some grilled pita?
So I’ll kick off the recipes with my favourite hummus, which is admittedly an inordinate pain in the royal posterior to make, but is always, and I do mean always, worth it if I can find the time and energy to do it. The secret lies in the chemistry of garlic: if you expose it to air, the enzymes create a lot of allicin-based compounds which give garlic some of it’s reported health benefits but a lot of it’s funky stink. If you submit it to acid, though, those enzyme deactivate and you get pure, potent, crisp garlic goodness without (as much of) the rank brute force. Result: you can pack a lot more garlic into a recipe, getting all that tasty flavour and kick, without things starting to reek. This recipe puts that technical consideration into the tahini sauce base, and then combines that with the chickpea mixture blended for texture. The resulting mixture ends up being both perfectly smooth and insanely flavourful: The Best Smooth Hummus Recipe
