This week, Value for Money compares four varieties of hummus
FALLON & BYRNE HUMMUS
€4.25 for 200g, €21.25 per kg
THIS HUMMUS is simplicity itself – all you get is chickpeas, tahini paste, olive oil, garlic, lemon and seasonings. It is home-made – well, store-made, probably – and has a lovely freshness to it. It has a decent lemony zing and is very smooth. It might be a little bland for some hummus fans and we would have liked the garlic to play a more central role. We would have also quite liked FB to put the weight of the product somewhere on the packaging so we could have worked out the unit price without having to call the store or take down our weighing scales.
VERDICT: Nice, simple, dear
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DUNNES STORES HOUMOUS
€1.79 for 200g, €8.95 per kg
THIS VERY pale-coloured product is flecked with small pieces of coriander leaves which is nice, but, it is made with vegetable rather than olive oil which is not so nice. It does make it cheaper than it might otherwise have been but lends it a greasiness we could have done without. The coriander and lemon flavours are pleasant but were the only real flavours we could detect – the chick peas, garlic and sesame were almost entirely lost. It is cheaper than the competition but doesn’t taste like it.
VERDICT: Good and cheap
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EDEN HOUMOUS ROYAL
€3.95 for 250g, €15.80 per kg
WE PRESUMED that this was made in France, given that the ingredient list and all the packaging was entirely in French, but a close inspection of the packaging reveals that it was made in Israel. Our French may be bad but is good enough to work out what huile vegetalmeans and we don't think it's olive oil which is a definite black mark against this product. Nor were we overly impressed to see two E numbers listed among the ingredients either. On the plus side, the chickpeas have been roughly chopped which gives it a nice crunch.
VERDICT: Disappointing
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M&S MOROCCAN TOPPED HOUMOUS
€2.29 for 170g, €13.47 per kg
IF YOU’VE ever wondered what “Moroccan topped hummus” was, then wonder no more. It is regular hummus topped with some sorry-looking whole chickpeas and some soft red onion. These whole chickpeas taste a lot better than they look but still serve as a barrier to the main event, the actual hummus. MS has married some strong lemon flavours with some stronger honey ones and thrown in a lot of spices, including coriander, cumin, turmeric, paprika, cinnamon, cloves and ginger into the mix. It’s nice but a bit more complex than it needs to be.
VERDICT: A little bit fussy
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EXCELLENT * * * * *
GREAT * * * *
FINE * * *
BELOW PAR * *
AWFUL *
