“Tahini has a beautiful versatility,” says Fadi Kattan, chef/co-founder of Akub in London and author of Bethlehem, “from a drizzle over your morning toast or granola, to an earthy background flavour in a sauce, to all sorts of cakes and cookies.” So the question really ought to be: is there anything this creamy, rich ground sesame paste can’t turn its hand to?
For Kattan, autumn means a kofta bake, featuring mince – “ideally half lamb, half beef” – finely chopped onions, chopped parsley, a bit of salt and some spices: “Black pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger and a predominant presence of allspice.” That’s all combined, then it goes into a greased roasting tray and is baked at 180C for 20 minutes. While that’s cooking, “make a paste of tahini with a splash each of lemon juice and water, crushed garlic and salt”. That gets spread over the top of the half-cooked kofta, then back in the oven with it for about half an hour to get nice and crackly. “It’s a very flavoursome and warming dish,” says Kattan, who would be inclined to serve it with a simple rocket salad dressed with olive oil, lemon and sumac.
Sauces are another way to work your way through that jar of tahini. Kattan’s go-to starts by heating sheep’s yoghurt with a bit of cornflour (“to solidify things”), tahini, water and salt. “Boil that down into a sauce, then drop in some kibbeh and a squeeze of orange juice – that’s beautiful.” Alternatively, mix 60g tahini with two tablespoons of soy sauce, a tablespoon and a half each of maple syrup and rice vinegar, plus a tablespoon of water, and use that to dress oodles of biang biang noodles, à la Yotam Ottolenghi, or follow Sami Tamimi and Tara Wigley’s lead in their book Falastin by mixing tahini, lemon juice, crushed garlic and salt, and using that as a dressing for roast cod.
More tahini magic is found over in the sweet section. One of the signature desserts at the Barbary in London, for example, is a pistachio hash cake – a dense, sticky tart made with ground pistachios and an oat shortcrust base. According to head chef Dan Alt, “One day, I had an epiphany and replaced the pistachio with tahini, and it balanced the sweetness of the base perfectly.”
Cookies, too, are great friends of tahini. Kattan seeks inspiration from tahin pekmez, a traditional morning meal made with equal parts tahini and dibes (grape molasses): “In winter, we dip bread in it for breakfast, but I also use it in cookies – it works really well.”
You might well already have everything in your cupboard to make some blondies as well. Anna Jones kicks them up a gear by swirling tahini through the batter, scatters with dark or milk chocolate chunks, and bakes. She then drizzles the cooled blondies with more tahini for good measure, then slices and serves.
Finally, seeing as we’re now in the grip of crumble season, it would be remiss not to mention tahini’s talents in that regard, too. Kurdish food writer Melek Erdal showcases this best, adding chopped almonds, walnuts and pistachio to the usual flour/butter/sugar mix, then stirs in some tahini, as well as sesame and nigella seeds. This, she says, produces “the best thing you’ll ever make” – and she’s not wrong.
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