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
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
100 ml tahini
Olive oil
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, cumin, tahini and lemon juice to the stock and blitz into a puree.
  4. Once the chicken is done, take it out of the water and shred it in thin, small stripes with a fork.
  5. Add the chicken to the sauce and mix well.
  6. Serve the dish luke warm with a drizzle of olive oil, a bit of cumin and bread.