Tahini sesame paste. Chickpea salad

I learned what tahini is and how to prepare it only after I moved to live in Israel. In Russia and Ukraine, this simple and healthy vegan dish is not yet widespread. And in vain!

Tahini is a paste made from ground sesame seeds, very filling and healthy. In Mediterranean countries, it is eaten as an independent dish (spread on regular bread, on toast, on rice or rice), placed in pitas with vegetables, added as a sauce to salads, and a variety of dishes are also prepared on its basis (falafel, tahini cookies, eggplants in tahini, etc.).

Vegetarians and vegans love tahini because, thanks to its composition, it not only provides the body with a set of valuable substances ( a large number of calcium, potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamins), vegetable fats and proteins, but also serves as a kind of “energy booster”, giving a surge of strength and resistance to cold.

So, first you need to grind the sesame seeds as finely as possible in a coffee grinder. At first the process goes briskly, and then you notice that the coffee grinder begins to work with visible effort. Sesame flour turns into a denser, fatty mass, and sesame oil begins to separate. This is the moment we are trying to achieve.

Be careful not to burn the coffee grinder!

Transfer the sesame mixture to a deep plate. Squeeze the juice from the lemon. We put it in a glass.

Mix the sesame mixture with a fork, a pinch of salt, adding a little water. The number of components is at your discretion. There is no single recipe here.

The taste will depend on the ratio of components. You can make tahini more salty or less salty, noticeably sour or without pronounced lemon sourness. You can leave the natural taste of sesame, or you can add, for example, garlic or herbs.

Some people add olive oil- but, in my opinion, this is unnecessary. Tahini is already very high in calories.

The main rule: when preparing tahini from ground sesame mass, do not pour in a lot of water and all the lemon juice at once, and do not add a lot of salt. Added a little - try it. We decided that it would not be enough - add more. Gradually.

At the exit you should You will get a delicate creamy paste of a light beige hue. Density is a matter of your taste. You can make it thicker, you can make it thinner.

You shouldn’t make it too liquid, as then it will drip from your sandwiches. 😀

By the way, I haven’t eaten bread for several years now, so I eat tahini, spreading it on lettuce leaves, on a piece of cucumber, or on buckwheat bread. And most often I just add a spoonful of tahini to a cucumber and tomato salad.

Try it! Delicious!

That's all. I hope you understand that the wild and unknown beast “tahina” is just finely ground sesame mixed with water, lemon juice and salt. 😀

It’s always like this: health is in simplicity, beauty is in purity. And strength... You know what strength is. Power is in the truth!

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The exotic word THINA (“tahini”) is often found in recipes for hummus, falafel and other Israeli dishes. What is this secret ingredient? We explain, show, prepare.

What is tahini (tahini)?

Tahini, also known as tahini (Hebrew טחינה‎), also known as sesame paste or sesame paste, is a thick, creamy paste made from ground sesame seeds. This is a necessary component of many dishes, in particular, well-known to our readers, falafel (read more about it) and hummus (and about it -). Various sauces are also made based on tahini.

The name of sesame paste is not entirely stable: in Russian and English languages it is called tahini or tahina, in Israel - tahini or tehina. The word comes from an ancient Arabic root meaning “to grind.”

History of tahini

Sesame has been grown in the East since ancient times. This culture is mentioned in cuneiform tablets written around 2000 BC. They talk about gods who drank sesame wine. The ancient Greek historian Herodotus writes that sesame was grown in the delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; here they made sesame oil from it.

Tahini is mentioned as an ingredient in hummus in a recipe dating back to the 13th century. This paste is used not only in Israel and the Middle East, but also in China, Korea, Japan, and India. In the 20th century it became popular in the West; In the United States, tahini began being sold in health food stores in 1940.

What does tahini consist of and what are its benefits?

The main ingredients of tahini are sesame seeds, lemon juice, salt and garlic. Olive oil and various spices are often added to this base: ground cumin, red pepper, parsley.

Tahini is a rich source of vitamins and minerals: it contains a lot of calcium, zinc, manganese, copper, phosphorus, vitamin B1, as well as many important amino acids, protein and fiber.

How to eat tahini

Tahini is one of the staple Israeli foods. In addition to the fact that it is included in many Israeli dishes, it is served as a sauce for meat or fish, as a gravy for falafel or shwarma, or just like that - with pita bread or bread. Tahini is even used in making sweets, such as halva, halvic ice cream and tahini cookies. But the most tasty dish with tahini - this is her favorite with eggplant. The harmony of these two tastes cannot be confused with anything else... in fact, they are very similar, and that’s probably why they are in harmony - be sure to try it!

How to make tahini

If it’s difficult to find tahini in stores near you, but you really want to try the paste itself and dishes based on it, cook it yourself! It's easy and very fast.

Ingredients:

Sesame seeds – 8 tbsp. l.

Vegetable oil (preferably olive, odorless) – 2 tbsp. l.

Lemon juice – 1 tbsp. l.

Salt - to taste

Sesame oil (preferably) – 1 tsp.

Preparation:

Heat the sesame seeds in a frying pan until golden brown and let cool. Then grind them in a blender or coffee grinder, add the remaining ingredients, mix thoroughly. If the paste is too thick, add more oil. To the resulting paste, add ground cumin, red pepper, garlic, and parsley to taste.

Prepare tahini and dishes based on it and be healthy! And don’t forget that if you want to taste real Israeli cuisine, it can’t do without tahini :)

By the way, the most delicious dish with tahini is eggplant with tahini. Try it and find out.

Gal Gutzeit

Creator, leader and spiritual inspirer of the “Israel with Love” project. Loves Israel, Tel Aviv and the sea.

27.04.2015

Tahini, tahini, tahina, sesame paste or sesame paste- all this is the same ingredient, included in many Israeli and Middle Eastern dishes, such as, and . When I traveled around Israel, tahini was added everywhere and to all dishes; it was sold in every small and large store, from grocery stores under the house to hypermarkets. Returning to my country, of course, I didn’t find it on the shelves, so I set out to prepare tahini myself. It turned out that it is not so difficult. Let's try! .

Ingredients

• - 400 g (unroasted, non-bitter)
• - or odorless olive oil - 2-3 tbsp

Cooking method

It cooks very quickly. To make delicious sesame tahini paste, you need to choose the right sesame seeds. Try it before you buy it, it should not be bitter, otherwise the sesame paste will also turn out bitter. We measure required quantity sesame
Pour half of it into the blender chopper and start grinding. When the sesame seeds turn into mush, add the second half and grind again.
This may take about 5 minutes. If you use a coffee grinder, the result, of course, will be much better and you will achieve the desired consistency faster. My blender can only grind as much as shown in the photo below, but the finer the better.
Add sesame oil. And we grind again.
Due to the fact that the sesame is heated so much, the consistency should be homogeneous and liquid. Then the tahini will thicken a little in the refrigerator. If the consistency is uneven, add a little more oil and grind again until we achieve the desired result.
ready for further use. Many people already use this tahini as a separate sauce, but there is a classic one (with the same name)

Hide photo

Tahina(or tahini, tahini) is a sesame paste that is very often used to prepare oriental dishes. This completely meatless/vegan dish is super easy to make. Of course, you can buy tahini ready-made in a store or in oriental shops at the market, but it is better to prepare it yourself - so that sesame retains as many useful vitamins and microelements as possible, because it is one of the leaders in calcium content. You can read more here -. Moreover, it is so easy and fast!

Ingredients

• white sesame seed raw- 1 glass
• vegetable oil(sesame or olive without flavour)- about 1/2 cup

Step-by-step instructions for preparing tahina with photos

The cooking technology is very simple.

Your tahina is ready.

Where can you use tahina?

It makes a great appetizer on its own - just chop up the veggies and dip it in like a sauce. It can also be used in dressings for excellent vegetarian salads; instead of oil, it can be added to porridge. Tahina is also an indispensable ingredient in such an oriental dish as.

Sesame paste tahini- a traditional product of oriental (Arab, Jewish, Greek, etc.) cuisine. It is obtained by grinding sesame (sesame) grains.

Tahini itself is practically tasteless. Having tried it for the first time in pure form, many are disappointed, although many like it anyway. In general, tahini is not intended for independent use. But it is a valuable component of many oriental dishes, including the famous halva. In combination with other products, tahini paste makes the taste of the dish sound completely new, while at the same time ennobling its aroma. That's why so many sauces and gravies are made from it.

IN eastern countries tahini is sold ready-made. It’s more difficult to get here, and it’s not cheap. Therefore, today we offer you a recipe with photos of making tahini at home. If you follow his recommendations, the paste will turn out tender, rich and homogeneous. Then you can add spices to it (lemon juice, salt, garlic, pepper, etc.) or mix it with sugar, honey, syrup, condensed milk - at your discretion. In any case, it will be delicious.

Well, let's start cooking!

Cooking steps

Take 100 g of sesame seeds.

We send it to a dry frying pan to fry over high heat until light golden brown. Do not leave the sesame unattended for even a minute and stir all the time so that it does not burn. When the seeds give off a pleasant smell (after 5 minutes), remove them from the heat. Of course, you can fry the sesame seeds longer, but keep in mind that even when removed from the stove, it will still “heat” (continue to warm up) for some time, so don’t overcook it!



Pour the sesame seeds into a plate to cool.



After that, we send it to the blender container.



Blend the sesame seeds with a blender for about a minute at high speed. Soon the oil will come out and the grains will begin to linger on the walls of the bowl.



At this point, you need to pour a tablespoon (or 3 tsp) of vegetable oil into the mass (in our case, sunflower oil, but the Greeks usually add olive oil). The indicated proportions are very important, because otherwise you will not get a homogeneous viscous paste. In general, tahini paste producers proudly say that in its production they use only sesame seeds without additives. This may be true, but at home you cannot do without additional oil, otherwise the mixture will not be homogeneous. When preparing sauces from tahini, vegetable oil is still added to it, so such a deviation from technology is not critical, and is even useful for the quality of the paste.



Blend the tahini again with a blender for 1-2 minutes (until it becomes completely homogeneous). Now the pasta is ready and can be added to any dish.



Homemade tahini can be stored for quite a long time, since it contains no perishable ingredients. But it’s still better to put the jar of pasta in the refrigerator.



Bon appetit!