How to make sesame seed puree, garbanzo bean spread or dip, and whole grain pita bread

May 28, 11:29 PMSacramento Nutrition ExaminerAnne Hart

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Here are two recipes for making flat bread (pita bread) and the garbanzo or fava bean filling or dip. Use any type of pureed beans you like. They all taste great.

You can use mashed pinto or black beans for this filling, but mashed or pureed garbanzo beans (chick peas) and lemon juice with olive oil are traditional ingredients. What you do with it is stuff the bean and vegetable mixture inside of a flat bread and take it on a picnic, to work, or eat warm at home.

It's appealing to all age groups. And you can adjust the ingredients. If you want to eat nutritiously and yet save money on brown-bagging your lunch to work, try a home-made legume and vegetable stuffing inside of flat bread you bake yourself using the ingredients you choose and the type of flour that best agrees with your digestion.

If you're tired of bread made with too much salt, then substitute celery seed, curry powder, ginger, cumin, cardamom, garlic, onion, cayenne, or any other herb that does your body good. Flat bread can be savory, sweet, spicy, neutral, or filled with carmelized onions.

Baking your own flat bread (Pita Bread)

3 cups garbanzo bean flour
1 teaspoon of celery seed
1 tablespoon high quality, raw, unfiltered honey
1 packet yeast (or, if from bulk, 2 teaspoons yeast)
1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups water, room temperature
2 tablespoons cold pressed, expeller pressed, walnut, macademia, avocado, rice bran oil, or extra virgin olive oil. I use olive oil for all my baking.

Open a packet of dry yeast and activate it according to the directions on the yeast package. If you are not using dry yeast, mix any other type of yeast with your flour. Add your oil and a cup to a cup and a quarter of room temperature water or any other liquid such as broth or tea.

Mix your ingredients in a bowl using a spoon into a ball. Add any liquid or water if the dough is too dry. You want a ball of dough easy to handle. Now take out the ball and pat it down on a flat surface. Knead your dough for a few minutes, perhaps 10 minutes. If you have an electric mixer, mix it slowly for 10 minutes.

Keep kneading and folding the dough just like you would be making pasta or a pie crust. Then coat the dough with oil. Coat your bowl with oil. Leave the dough to rise in the covered bowl at room temperature for an hour and a half. By that time the dough should have doubled in bulk.

Put your hands into the bowl now and keep punching the dough to release the air bubbles. Divide the ball of dough into eight pieces. Roll each ball of dough into another ball and cover in bowls, leaving the eight balls alone for another half hour. The dough will soften a bit.

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees F. Use a cookie sheet turned upside down in your oven to throw the dough on so your dough will bake in the shape of flat bread. A kitchen wares store can sell you a special pan for baking flat bread.

In Mediterranean countries, people baking flat breads use a baking stone. Some stores carry baking stones. If not, any stainless steel pan turned upside down will do.

After the half hour ‘resting’ time is over, sprinkle your dough balls with flour and put them on a flat surface such as a cutting board. Take your rolling pin and stretch the dough, rolling it out like a pie crust.

The dough should be a bit more than an eighth of an inch thick. If the dough breaks, cover it and let it rest another 10 minutes.

If you don’t like blisters on your flat breads, take a spray bottle of water and spray your upside down cookie sheet. Close the oven door. Wait another half hour while the preheated oven continues to humidify the inside of the oven. I like the blisters on my flat breads. So I don’t sprinkle down the baking surface.

Lay several of the dough balls that have been flattened with your rolling pin on the hot cookie sheet that’s turned upside down. Bake only three to five minutes for each flattened ball of bread.

If you want more crispy darker bread, bake another five minutes or less. Taste the bread with the three minutes of baking time first so you don’t burn your bread and make it bitter. Serve warm and toasted stuffed with the garbanzo mixture. Or brown-bag a lunch or picnic.

Making one type of vegan garbanzo, mixed beans, pinto, black bean, or fava bean and vegetable stuffing

If you’re not salt-sensitive you can add a half teaspoon of sea or mineral salt to the dry ingredients. If you’re salt-sensitive substitute a pinch or two of spices such as celery seed, onion powder, garlic powder, or cayenne pepper.

This recipe makes four sandwiches. Soak the beans overnight in cold water. Drain, cover with cold water, add the spices and simmer until the beans are cooked but still firm (about 45 minutes). Drain, but save the water.

Mix the beans together with the red onion, parsley, mint leaves, and garlic and puree through a strainer. Add enough of the water that the beans soaked in overnight in the refrigerator to prevent sticking.

Mix the garbanzo bean flour with the egg. Stir the liquids into the beans. In a large frying pan, heat about an inch of the oil. Use a tablespoon to drop the mixture into the hot oil. As you fry, turn once making sure each side is golden brown and crusty.

Drain off the oil on clean, safe, paper, and serve hot on a toasted flat-bread sandwich spread with lemon-flavored tahini (pureed sesame seed) sauce. Top your sandwich with sliced tomatoes and sliced red onions, dark green lettuce or spinach, and lemon juice dressing.

If you want to make your own flat pocket bread without the usual white flour commercial flat bread types found in stores, use garbanzo bean flour, rice flour, soy flour, or oat flour. Here’s the recipe for making your own flat pocket bread.  

Making Another Variety of Vegan Hummos Dip

With the pureed version of vegan/vegetarian hummos, all you'd need would be the sesame paste (tahini) and the mashed cooked garbanzos (chick peas). Add lemon juice to taste, usually the juice of one lemon, and preferred spices such as garlic, toasted cumin seeds, coriander, or celery seed. Then add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil on top.

I use chopped parsley, mint, and cilantro, minced garlic and onion. I serve this dish surrounded by diced raw vegetables such as yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, red onions, chopped celery, and chopped spinach and lots of chopped kale.

Click on the three videos below at the end of this article. One video is on how to make hummos dip or spread with meat. (Vegetarians may omit the meat). And the other two videos feature Black Sea coast music and song with which to enjoy your bean dip and warm bread, or to dance to as you prepare this ethnic food. If you're vegetarian, substitute vegetables for the meat and think of cruising ancient Ephesus in perfect weather. 

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