It’s been a while, you would have come across a savory recipe here. I know, being a dessert person, I have a strong affinity for the sweet goodies either baked or non-baked. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t devour on savories  I love to cook and share my food with my friends and family. And you know, when it is about get-together or even small chit-chats, you just can’t survive on dessert. Of course, dessert is something which we want to sum up our meal with. But we all need some munchies to appreciate the desserts better in the end. I would make dips and spreads for my chips platter. I would make gorgeous salads to along with the creamy pasta. But I would never make my own chips or crackers.

But recently, I got this inspiration from one of my blogger friend Sangeeta, who brought us scrumptious and hearty whole grain crackers, during one of our blogger’s potluck dinner. And she was kind enough to bring the tangy and zingy orange and chilly marmalade to go along with them. While I munched on those wholesome crackers throughout the evening, I decided to give them a try.

It took me some time to bake them though. I flipped through the pages of  the cookbooks I have and surfed through the internet and finally settled down to the revered Julia Child’s.  Her recipes for whole wheat crackers sounded amazingly simple and it was indeed a breeze baking them. Just a handful of ingredients and such light, crisp and flavorful results! I served the lavash with hummus, for which I made two versions, one good old classic version and another one with roasted beetroots and few mint leaves. I baked one third of the recipe mentioned in the book, Baking With Julia. Wish I had baked the whole recipe because the crackers disappeared sooner than I had believed!

Lavash Crackers

Ingredients

1 tsp white sesame seeds
1 tsp black sesame seeds
1 tsp nigella seeds
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup warm water
1 tsp olive oil

Instructions

1. Mix sesame seeds, nigella seeds and coarse salt together and keep aside.
2. In a bowl mix all the remaining ingredients and kneed to form a smooth dough ball.
3. Divide the dough into two halves, cover with a damp kitchen towel and let them rest for about 30 minutes.
4. Preheat the oven at 230 degree Celsius and grease two baking sheets.
5. Dust the work surface with four. Taking one half of the dough at a time, roll into a very thin rectangle, trying to roll into an even thickness.
6. Gently roll up the dough around your rolling pin and unroll into the baking sheets.
7. Using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, cut the dough into small rectangles. There is no need to separate the rectangles at this time, as they will separate from each other eventually, once they are baked.
8. Brush the rectangles with water and sprinkle the seeds mixture over the top and put them in oven to bake for 2 to 3 minutes, depending upon the size of the crackers. Remove the tray from the oven, once the crackers are golden.
9. Once the crackers come out of the oven, some will already be crisp and others will crisp in the air.
10. Store the crackers in an airtight container, once completely cooled.

Hummus

Ingredients

2 cup boiled chickpeas
4 tbsp tahini
4 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup of liquid from boiling of chickpeas
6 cloves of garlic
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup roasted beetroot puree
handful of fresh mint leaves

Instructions

1. Mix all the ingredients except beetroot and mint leaves in the jar of a liquidizer or food processor and puree them together to make a nice smooth paste.
2. Pour half of the puree into a serving bowl and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.
3. Keeping remaining half into the food processor, add the beetroot and mint leaves to make a smooth puree.
4. Transfer the puree into another serving bowl. Adjust the salt, as needed. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and garnish with few sprigs of mint leaves and enjoy with the crackers.