I wanted to name my dog Tahini. Or Mr. Feeny. Alas, my chocolate brown dog was much better suited to be Fig but I still love the name and the sesame spread.
My writing process is a little nutty (no pun intended) - the outline for this post has been sitting in my drafts folder and this was all I had for a solid month:
Tahini savoryTahini sweetTahini cookie dough recipe from Bela … That’s it. I hope that illustrative table of contents gets you excited for the rest of this newsletter, with all of that thrilling detail and important context.
Tahini just has two ingredients: sesame seeds and oil. Some don’t use oil at all! Despite this simplicity, I’ve never had any interest in making tahini from scratch. There are just too many options at the supermarket and the effort required to make it outweighs any potential impact in my mind.
My one gripe with the ingredient is how it separates: the solids at the bottom are thicker than a bowl of oatmeal. If there was a hidden camera in my kitchen, there would be an embarrassingly high number of clips of me trying to put knives and long spoons through jars of tahini like the sword in the stone, getting the oils all over the counter and myself in the process. You’d see me walk away from the process and return a shell of myself, still trying to unite the oil + solids. Some recommend blending tahini and then popping in the fridge but I can’t be bothered (despite how bothered I am by this). However, there are some squeeze bottle varieties of tahini that can be kept in the fridge and are extremely user friendly.
I’m sharing some of my favorite recipes that include Tahini, including Bela’s cookie dough recipe.
Moby Dick’s Hummus: to the small contingent of DMV followers reading this, you know the vibes. Moby’s published an excellent hummus recipe in the Post 15+ years ago and my family swears by it. It’s simple, but the secret tip here is to shell your chickpeas - it makes the world of a difference in terms of texture!
Ottolenghi’s Roasted Eggplant with Tahini Yogurt Sauce: Roast some eggplant, mix up a little yogurt + tahini + lemon juice for the top and sprinkle with pomegranate seeds. Simple and ideal for entertaining!
Sweet Potatoes with Tahini Butter: Steaming sweet potatoes is an underrated cooking method. You get all of the fluffiness and none of the stringiness of roasting. The sauce will make your mouth water — it’s dense, savory, tangy, and tart. The tahini/soy/lime combo is divine.
Bela’s Friend’s Cookie Dough: My friend Bela’s friend runs a cooking Instagram and created a somewhat healthy cookie dough using chickpeas and tahini - it’s safe to eat raw, gluten free, and keeps nicely in the freezer. It is a fabulous snack that surprises + delights me anytime I open my freezer drawer. I don’t feel bad about eating chunks of it at random.
Bonus: A sauce I have not yet tried. This green sauce combines cilantro, tahini, miso, honey, lemon, and lime. I would like to drink it with a straw and slather some roasted root vegetables in it.
Ta ta(hini) for now. xo Roya