Vegan Recipe Monday: Basil Chickpea Spread

Jump to Comments

This Recipe Monday comes to you courtesy of one Ms. Patricia Well’s and her amazing cookbook, Vegetable Harvest. My friend Katie bestowed this lovely book on me last summer, and I have been living off it all semester.

By and large, I adore this cookbook. I’ve used nearly all the vegetable section, and several of the pasta and assorted other recipes. They’ve all been pretty much divine. Plus, they’ve been relatively easy to veganize. When I’ve been up for veganizing, that is. And let’s be honest, at the end of a long week of biostatistics and student harassment, soy cream in place of real cream? Just not going to happen.

I must depart with Ms. Wells, however, on her dip recipes. Like the Basil Chickpea Spread (pg 16), for example, they’ve all tasted much too “green” for my tastes. And as Katie pointed out, chickpea spread is basically just going to end up tasting like hummus. And hummus? It’s good just as it is. Leave well enough alone, please. I’ve not yet tried the Chunky Eggplant Spread, but that may be my last attempt at her spreads before I decide that Patricia and I just have different tastes. I like the taste of fat in my dips, and she likes the taste of vegetable. A simple difference of opinion, really.

In any case, if you like the sound of basil and chickpea together, you should try it for yourself. Especially if you like the taste of wholesome. But not fat. And if you do, may I suggest you eat a spoonfull of Nutella to cure yourself of that immediately.

I don’t think I’m breaking any great copyright laws by pointing out that this dip includes: one can of chickpeas, a handful of basil leaves, a bit of lemon juice, roughly 4 tablespoons of olive oil, and sea salt to taste.

Patricia Wells explains it in much more detail, and actually has you create basil-infused oil before you combine it with the chickpeas. If you’re like my friend Katie and like to make things hard for yourself, go on and do that. If you’re like me, and are either tired, lazy, or in grad school hell, you will just dump all the above ingredients in a food processor and puree till smooth. Same diff.

Regardless, Patricia Wells is still a goddess. I adore her and will TOTALLY be attending her cooking school in Provence. That is, as soon as I finish this degree and have an extra $5,000 laying around to drop on learning how to do what Katie and her cookbooks do for free (well, free for me anyway since Katie gifted me with a copy).

Anyway, cherie, bon appetit.

Update 12/29: Notably, I just found the recipe for this dish at Chowhound: Chickpea and Basil Puree. Frighteningly, I also just learned that this blog post comes up third on a Google search for said dish. In case it isn’t clear from the above, I LOVE PATRICIA WELLS (lest my snark read otherwise).

7 Comments

Filed under cooking, food, recipe