Milk, eggs, bread, butter, carrots and hummus. The once exotic chickpea paste has made it on to the list of British grocery staples: a 2013 survey found that 41% of us have a pot in the fridge, and that annual sales totalled £60m.
Everyone knows that the first ingredient in hummus is chickpeas, but much less is known about the essential second ingredient, tahini (which, coincidentally, is also the second most useful ingredient in my pantry, just behind olive oil). It’s high time we demystified tahini. First up, it is little more than an oily paste made of ground sesame seeds. Like olive oil, it has been made around the Mediterranean, Middle East and North Africa for centuries, and requires some serious crushing to extract the oils from the solids. It also varies significantly according to the variety of the key ingredient, who makes it and how. In short, there’s lots of expertise, local know-how and pride involved.
Plain tahini is made with hulled sesame kernels. The kernels are roasted, then crushed, making a thick, oily block that eventually separates into oil and solid (you need to stir it vigorously to bring it back into a pourable paste). Whole tahini, on the other hand, is made by keeping some or all of the hull, and in some cases not toasting the seeds. It is richer but can also be a bit bitter or gritty. I love it on buttered toast or fresh bread, drizzled with honey or date or grape syrup, as is the custom in Iraq and Turkey.
The best sesame seeds for tahini are said to be the Ethiopian humera variety, thanks to their richness of flavour. The source of the sesame isn’t normally listed on jars of tahini sold in the UK, nor is the method of production, but generally speaking, I find Israeli, Lebanese and Palestinian brands superior to Greek and Cypriot ones; they seem more flavoursome, lighter and less claggy.
There are few limits as to what you can do with tahini. Creamy, nutty and rich, a drizzle of tahini paste works wonders on a platter of roast vegetables, grilled meat or fish. Tahini sauce – a mix of tahini paste, water, crushed garlic, lemon juice and salt – is one of my go-to fridge staples, there ready to add a bit of heft to all sorts of meals. If you thin by adding a little soy sauce, honey or cider vinegar, until it’s the consistency of a salad dressing, you can use it to give body to any bowl of greens.
It’s wonderful in sweet dishes, too: try adding a drizzle to your next scoop of vanilla ice-cream, or swirl some through your next batch of brownie mix, pop in the oven to bake and… open sesame!
Three-chilli fish
Don’t be intimidated by the amount of chilli in this: the ancho is much more about smoke than heat, plus the creamy tahini sauce evens things out. If you can’t get hold of ancho or Aleppo chilli, use a mix of a quarter-teaspoon of regular chilli flakes and a teaspoon of smoked paprika instead. Serves four.
4 halibut steaks, on the bone (or halibut fillets, skinless and boneless)
Salt
60ml olive oil
2 mild red chillies, halved lengthways, seeds removed and cut into 1cm pieces
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 dried ancho chilli, trimmed, seeds discarded and torn into 5cm pieces
½ tsp Aleppo chilli flakes
1.1kg plum tomatoes, blanched, skins removed and then flesh roughly chopped into 2cm dice
50g tomato paste
½ tsp caster sugar
¼ tsp cumin seeds, toasted and roughly crushed, to serve
5g coriander leaves, roughly chopped, to serve
For the tahini sauce
50g tahini
1tbsp lemon juice
Lightly season the fish with a third of a teaspoon of salt in total.
Put a large saute pan for which you have a lid on a medium-high flame and heat the oil. Add the pieces of fresh chilli and fry for two minutes, stirring frequently, then add the garlic, caraway, ancho and Aleppo chilli, and fry for a minute longer, until the garlic is starting to turn golden-brown. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar and half a teaspoon of salt and, once the mixture is boiling, turn down the heat to medium and leave to simmer for 15 minutes; stir from time to time, until the sauce is thick. Lay the fish in the sauce, cover the pan and leave to cook for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the sauce by combining the tahini and lemon juice with 60ml water and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt.
Gently lift the fish out of the pan and keep warm. (It may have released a lot of liquid during the cooking, turning the sauce runny, in which case increase the heat and let it bubble away until thick again.) Divide the tomato sauce between four shallow bowls, top with a piece of fish, dribble over a generous helping of tahini sauce, sprinkle with the cumin and coriander, and serve.
Brussels sprouts with burnt butter, black garlic and caraway
Serve these straight out of the hot pan, otherwise the sprouts will lose that vibrant colour. You used to have to go to specialist shops to get black garlic, a staple of Asian cooking, but these days it’s increasingly common in large supermarkets, and widely available online. Serves four.
450g brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half lengthways
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt
½ tsp caraway seeds
12 cloves black garlic, roughly chopped
2 tbsp picked thyme leaves
30g unsalted butter
30g pumpkin seeds, toasted
1½ tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp tahini paste
Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Mix the halved sprouts with the oil and a quarter-teaspoon of salt, then spread out on an oven tray lined with baking paper and roast for 10 minutes, until cooked through and golden-brown but still crunchy, then remove from the oven.
Lightly crush the caraway seeds in a mortar, add the black garlic and thyme, and crush to a rough paste.
Put the butter in a large saute pan on a medium-high heat and cook for three minutes, until it has melted and gone dark brown. Stir in the sprout mix, the crushed garlic paste, the pumpkin seeds and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, stir for 30 seconds, then take off the heat and stir in the lemon juice. Transfer to a platter or individual plates at once, spoon tahini over the top and serve at once.
Roast cauliflower and chickpeas with warm tahini yoghurt
Serve this with pitta or crusty white bread. Serves four for a weekend breakfast or light lunch.
1 medium cauliflower, trimmed and broken into 4cm florets
1 tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
3 tbsp olive oil, plus 2 tsp extra to serve
1 tsp ground cumin
Flaked sea salt and black pepper
100g tahini paste
1½ tbsp lemon juice
1 small garlic clove, crushed
150g Greek yoghurt
4 soft-boiled eggs, peeled, lightly crushed with the back of a fork and broken into a few pieces
300g (about 2) plum tomatoes, coarsely grated and skin discarded
For the green chilli sauce
2 green chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
1 small garlic clove, peeled and crushed
30g coriander, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small preserved lemon, skin and flesh finely chopped, seeds discarded
Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Put all the ingredients for the sauce in a mortar, add a quarter-teaspoon of salt, andpound with a pestle to a rough paste.
Put the cauliflower and chickpeas in a bowl with the olive oil, cumin, ateaspoon and a half of salt and plenty of pepper. Line a 30cm x 40cm baking tray with baking paper and spread the cauliflower mix evenly over it. Roast for 15minutes, until the cauliflower issoft and caramelised and the chickpeas are starting to turn crisp, then remove from the oven.
Put the tahini, lemon juice, garlic, half a teaspoon of salt and 100ml water in a small saucepan. Whisk toa smooth paste, then put on a medium-low heat and whiskin the yoghurt bit by bit, until the sauce starts to steam. Pour on to a large platter or individual plates, spoon the cauliflower and chickpeas on top, followed by the egg, tomatoes and chilli sauce. Finish with a drizzle of oil and serve.
