a 2013 survey found that 41% of us have a pot in the fridge. Tahini is there, too, ready to be drizzled on toast or whisked into a sauce or dressing. Sesame, Date and Banana Cake makes use of tahini in both the cake proper and the icing. The Jebrini family has been there for decades, and the mill is now run by two brothers, making raw tahini just as their father and grandfather did before them. 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. Ottolenghi Spitalfields will reopen at 9am on December 2nd. 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! We talked to chefs, bakers, and food writers about the best tahini money can buy (online) for making everything from a simple sauce to fancy pastries and even ice … FLAVOUR . Oat and tahini cookies are topped with dark chocolate. The basalt millstones at the Jebrini mill, for example, date back 200 years. 80g good-quality tahini 2 tbsp dijon mustard 130g panko breadcrumbs 50g sesame seeds 50g plain flour 4 large skinless chicken breasts (680g net weight) 300ml sunflower oil, for frying. There are 10 or so things in my kitchen that I can’t do without. Grilled meats and fish, roasted root vegetables, a chopped fresh tomato and cucumber salad: All are enriched by it. Lay the fish in the sauce, cover the pan and leave to cook for 10 minutes. For me, however, and everyone else who grew up in the Middle East, tahini is as loved and revered a staple as olive oil or wine. Roast for 15 minutes, until the cauliflower is soft and caramelised and the chickpeas are starting to turn crisp, then remove from the oven. Go seek it out. ilk, eggs, bread, butter, carrots and hummus. If just a few kilograms of tahini are being made each day, however, as at Jebrini, more control can be taken to produce the smoothest, creamiest and least bitter tahini. Good tahini is also delicious as is, drizzled over ice cream. Serves four. Serves four. Finish with a drizzle of oil and serve. Meanwhile, make the sauce by combining the tahini and lemon juice with 60ml water and an eighth of a teaspoon of salt. 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). “There are few limits as to what you can do with tahini,” Ottolenghi said in his column in The Guardian earlier this year. 4 halibut steaks, on the bone (or halibut fillets, skinless and boneless)Salt60ml olive oil2 mild red chillies, halved lengthways, seeds removed and cut into 1cm pieces3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced1 tsp caraway seeds1 dried ancho chilli, trimmed, seeds discarded and torn into 5cm pieces½ tsp Aleppo chilli flakes1.1kg plum tomatoes, blanched, skins removed and then flesh roughly chopped into 2cm dice50g tomato paste½ tsp caster sugar¼ tsp cumin seeds, toasted and roughly crushed, to serve5g coriander leaves, roughly chopped, to serve, For the tahini sauce50g tahini1tbsp lemon juice. The toasty, creamy sesame seed butter adds depth to everything from vinaigrettes to smoothies to quick breads. Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. That jar you reach for to make hummus or baba ghanouj, its packaging timeless, rooted in the health food shop circa 1970? Tahini is there, too, ready to be drizzled on toast or whisked into a sauce or dressing. An Ingredient Yotam Ottolenghi Can’t Do Without. Like all natural tahini products, you’ll h… It’s high time we demystified tahini. It is sourced from 100% organically grown and certified sesame seeds grown in Ethiopia; aside from this, there are no other ingredients. It will still separate when it’s left to sit, yes, with the oil rising to the top, but it comes together very smoothly when stirred. The cake is topped with bananas that have been caramelized under the broiler. Plain tahini is made with hulled sesame kernels. In short, there’s lots of expertise, local know-how and pride involved. Unlike Greek or Cypriot tahini, which I find to be claggy and bitter, tahini from the Middle East is creamy enough to pour over porridge, nutty enough to spread on toast, and smooth enough to eat by the spoon. Red wine vinegar and tomatoes, when they’re in season. Olive oil and lemons. Creamy, nutty and rich, a drizzle of tahini paste works wonders on a platter of roast vegetables, grilled meat or fish. To this are added oats, hazelnuts and sesame seeds. Thanks to the maturing American palate, we’re now lucky enough to be able to find at least a few different brands of tahini at many grocery stores. 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. We can draw a line between these more rarefied items and their mass-market counterparts. As well as baking tahini cookies and cakes, I like to make halvah-studded brownies with tahini swirled through the batter before it goes in the oven. Check price at Amazon Pepperwood Organic Whole Seed Tahini is a perennially popular tahini thanks to its extreme simplicity and purity. Whisk to a smooth paste, then put on a medium-low heat and whisk in the yoghurt bit by bit, until the sauce starts to steam. Getting hold of what I call “proper” tahini — maybe it needs to be called “artisanal” to gain the kudos it deserves — outside the Middle East is not as easy as getting hold of either the 1970s style or the Greek or Cypriot varieties, but it is absolutely there to find, for those who want it, in Middle Eastern shops or online. First up, it is little more than an oily paste made of ground sesame seeds. Its color can range from a light beige to a very deep red, depending on how long the seeds are roasted. But tahini? NOPI and ROVI will reopen on December 2nd for dinner. Sweet things also welcome the creamy nuttiness of tahini. It’s the difference between presliced industrial white bread and handmade sourdough; between instant coffee and freshly ground beans; between run-of-the-mill vinegar and one that perfectly balances fruit and acidity. To book a table click here . Put a large saute pan for which you have a lid on a medium-high flame and heat the oil. 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. I use tahini at every meal, nearly every day. That jar sitting at the back of the cupboard, its contents split in two, with a layer of oil sitting on top of packed sesame paste? 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). Put all the ingredients for the sauce in a mortar, add a quarter-teaspoon of salt, and pound with a pestle to a rough paste. The Falastin Hamper . The pride taken in their product, the care with which it is made, the reverence for the source, process and method: It’s not just hipster baristas with their pour-over brewing methods who take their art seriously. I find the brands that come from Lebanon, from Jordan, from Palestine, and Israel are normally the better ones.