OPEN SESAME! And enjoy it in its many forms…
I can’t remember the first time I tasted sesame,but I have a feeling that it was probably in the form of sesame oil. And the reason for that is because it was probably appearing in a dish in some kind of supporting role rather than taking centre stage. In any case, I fell in love with the stuff, to the extent that I came away from a recent visit to Asia Market with no fewer than four bottles of roasted sesame oil!
Can I describe the flavour? Not very well, I’m afraid. Yes, I suppose it’s a little nutty especially in the company of sugar as in halva, the Middle-Eastern sweet where sesame paste meets honey. But it tastes different again when working with salt or the umami hit of soya sauce.
The sesame plant grows in the tropics but most of the serious commercial production of sesame seeds (which grow in pods) is confined to India, Myanmar and the Sudan where it thrives thanks to being brilliantly drought-resistant. Thought to be the first crop ever to be farmed for oil, even the name sesame seems to originate in ancient words for oil or fat. Indeed, of all the crops grown for plant oil extraction, it has by far the highest yield. If you crush a sesame seed between your fingers you will see that it’s almost all oil.
Not surprisingly, the biggest importers of sesame seed are Japan and China in that order, as their cuisines rely heavily on sesame oil.
Sesame seed paste known in Arabic as tahini or tahina is another of my store cupboard essentials. It’s made from the hulled seeds that are toasted and milled to a paste. A layer of oil floats above the solid element and needs to be stirred in before use. In the Middle East tahini is often mixed with water, salt, lemon juice and garlic to make a thin but delicious sauce. This is one of my favourite ways of using it – simply fabulous drizzled on grilled fish or kebabs.
With chickpeas tahini makes hummus. The most traditional form of this Middle Eastern dip uses very little else but I like to fortify mine with lots of lemon and garlic, so much so that it’s probably quite inauthentic but I simply don’t care. It’s delicious!
I’m much the same with baba ghanoush, the aubergine dish. I always make some when I have the barbecue fired up with charcoal as I find there is no other way to get that essential taste and smell of smoke into the dish. And it’s so simple. I cook two aubergines over charcoal until the skin is burnt and blistered. I let them cool a little, scoop out the softened flesh, add the juice of a lemon or maybe 2, 4 cloves of crushed garlic, 2 tablespoons of tahini and 2 tablespoons of water. This is blitzed together in the food processor and seasoned with salt and pepper before serving. (I should add that I know people to like to add even more tahini to their baba ghanoush!)
As for toasted sesame oil, I always add some at the end of cooking a stir-fry or over noodles or a spicy soup. It just seems to finish these dishes and lift them. Occasionally, I will toss French beans or mangetout with butter and sesame oil and the result is always more than the sum of these parts.
Actually, I wonder if I first tasted sesame – consciously at least – when we were married first back in the 1980s and Johann made gomazio, essentially a powdered condiment common in Japanese cuisine. She took unhulled sesame seeds (the usual kind) and toasted them on a dry pan and then ground them to a powder before adding salt in the ratio of 1 part salt to 5 parts sesame seeds.
It has remained an essential on our table ever since and is absolutely essential when we have roast chicken. Gomasio somehow makes roast chicken taste even more of roast chicken! Without any need for monoodium glutamate or any other additive. I implore you to try it!
ã Tom Doorley 2023
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