Smoked hummus with mushrooms and almonds

Instructions

1. Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Place in a large saucepan with the carrot, onion, half the garlic and enough cold water to cover well. Bring to the boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer for 1 hour or until tender.
2. Remove the carrot, onion and garlic, then drain the chickpeas, reserving the cooking liquid. Set aside 50 g of the cooked chickpeas.
3. Place the remaining cooked chickpeas in a food processor with the remaining garlic, tahini, liquid smoke and lemon juice and blitz on high speed until smooth, adding some of the reserved cooking liquid to help blitz as necessary. Season to taste and set aside to rest and thicken.
4. For the mushroom and almond topping, heat half the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the diced challah and stir until golden and crisp. Remove from the pan and set aside.  Add half the butter and the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil to the pan. Add the reserved cooked chickpeas and the mushrooms and cook over high heat until slightly softened. Add the almonds, toum, isot pepper, tarragon and the remaining butter and stir until the almonds and mushrooms are golden. Add the croutons and toss to coat, then stir in the lemon juice and season to taste.
5. To serve, spoon the hummus into a wide shallow bowl and top with the mushroom, almond and crouton mixture. Garnish with a few extra tarragon leaves.