Oden Oren’s secret ingredient – tahini

‘Tahini goes very well with fish or salad.’ Photograph: Julia_Sudnitskaya/Getty Images/iStockphoto

I eat tahini every day. There’s something about this paste of hulled sesame seeds that is addictive. A good tahini is sweet, not bitter, and silky.

I come from Israel, where we eat a lot of tahini, in all kinds of salad, in hummus. I’d say in Israel and Palestine hummus is heavily tahini-based compared with other places – about 50% tahini, hence the silky smoothness of our hummus.