Category Archives: tahini

Cashew Garlic Noir

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What do you get when you blend a blob of homemade cashew cheese, about a nob of black garlic cloves, black tahini, a drizzle of olive oil, and salt and pepper?

A spreadable, moreish thingy that looks like meconium but tastes seriously yummy.

Blend:

 

  • a large round of homemade cashew cheese
  • a tub of aged, black garlic
  • half a dozen (pitted) olives
  • about half a cup of black tahini
  • a drizzle of olive oil
  • about half a teaspoon of ground pepper
  • about half a teaspoon of salt

Keep blending until thoroughly mixed to an even colour. Scrape down the sides of the blender bowl half way through to ensure that all the cheesy bits are mixed in.

Serve as a thick dip (with stout crackers) or spread on crackers.

NOTE: To make cashew cheese follow this recipe, substituting your nuts as appropriate.


Recipe: Hetty McKinnon’s Green bean tahini casserole with lentils and crispy turmeric shallots

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Green bean tahini casserole with lentils and crispy turmeric shallots

100g (1⁄2 cup) puy lentils, rinsed (changed from black lentils in original)
Extra-virgin olive oil
1kg green beans, trimmed and halved
250g fresh shiitake mushrooms, coarsely chopped or sliced
2 thyme sprigs, leaves picked
90g (1⁄3 cup) tahini
Juice of 1⁄2 lemon
1 garlic clove, very finely chopped
Handful of chopped chives
Sea salt and black pepper

Crispy turmeric shallots

2 French shallots, finely sliced into rounds
2 tbsp rice flour
1⁄2 tsp ground turmeric
125ml (1⁄2 cup) sunflower or other high-temperature oil, plus extra if needed
Sea salt and black pepper

Substitute
Shiitake mushrooms: button or Swiss brown mushrooms
French shallots: small red onions
Rice flour: plain flour

Preheat the oven to 190C. Oil a large baking or gratin dish.

Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Add the lentils, cover and cook for 15-20 minutes, until the lentils are just tender. Drain.

Meanwhile, make the crispy turmeric shallots. Toss the shallot rounds together with the rice flour, turmeric and a pinch of salt and pepper, using your hands to break up the rings so that they are evenly coated.

Heat the oil in a small saucepan until very hot (test with a wooden chopstick or wooden spoon; if it sizzles, the oil is ready). Add the shallot rings to the oil a handful at a time and fry until golden brown. When ready, place them on a paper towel to absorb excess oil and immediately sprinkle with some sea salt. Repeat until all the shallot rings are cooked. Allow to cool.

Heat a splash of olive oil in a large frying pan and add the beans. Season with sea salt and black pepper and cook for 5–7 minutes, until the beans are tender and turning golden. Remove from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, add another drizzle of oil along with the mushrooms and thyme and cook until the mushrooms have turned golden. Remove from the heat.

Place the tahini in a small bowl, add the lemon juice, garlic and chives
and slowly whisk in cold water, one tablespoon at a time, until the mixture is the consistency of thickened cream. Season with sea salt and lots of black pepper.

Combine the beans with the mushrooms, lentils and tahini sauce. Transfer to the baking dish and bake for 10-12 minutes. Take the dish out of the oven, top with the crispy turmeric shallots and return to the oven for another five minutes. Serve immediately.

Tips

The crispy turmeric shallots can be made up to a day ahead. If you are short on time, buy ready-made crispy fried shallots from your Asian grocery store or supermarket.

The green bean casserole can be made the day ahead and topped and baked with the onions just before eating.

Other high-temperature oils include peanut or rice bran.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/aug/19/hetty-mckinnons-green-bean-tahini-casserole-recipe

Spinach Cannelloni with Adzuki bean sauce

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Waitrose supermarket regularly slips marketing food porn into your shopping bag if you’re not watching carefully. Unpacking the fruit and veg later from the floorful of cotton and linen shopping bags you unexpectedly stumble upon this slim volume getting down and dirty with the spuds, or slicing it up with a loaf of bread.

“Follow this recipe and you’ll be popular and beautiful like the laughing people in the photos! Oh, and don’t forget to buy all the ingredients from Waitrose.”

I would have been more popular for instance if I had cooked the recipe for Cannelloni which steamed invitingly off the page. In front of a log fire which was in the background of the shot if I recall providing that additional look of heartiness and warmth to the shot. I’m not entirely sure that detail is correct though, as I binned the magazine to the recycling after a quick flick through it.

It did inspire me to have a go at making a cannelloni dish though…

Tahini isn’t an obvious choice I’ll admit for an Italian dish, however this was really good I have to say.

Was in the larder…

  • lasagne sheets
  • spinach
  • light tahini
  • basil pesto
  • half an onion, chopped
  • clove of garlic, chopped
  • fresh rosemary, sage and thyme
  • course crushed black pepper to taste
  • a “tray from the farm shop” worth of cherry tomatoes
  • six smallish mushrooms, chopped
  • 1 cup of blended, presteamed spinach
  • 1 cup of cooked adzuki beans
  • tomato paste
  • miso paste
  • red wine and water
  • olive oil

A frenzy of activity…

Here goes; a lot of this happened in parallel so it didn’t take too long I suppose to put it together, but it was certainly a frantic 30 minutes or so before it went in the oven and the bench was wiped down. On the other hand, don’t assume that everything happened in a linear fashion in the order that it is listed here.

1. Have this ready first though… Blend together the spinach, and a very generous pouring of the tahini, and a few generous spoonfuls of pesto.
2. The lasagne sheets. For a meal for two, I used five sheets (dry size each approx. 15cms x 15cms) – I seem to have some sort of tribal memory that you should pre-cook as many sheets as you actually really need, plus one spare, as they ALWAYS stick together in the pot. Boil at least 5 cms deep of water in a pan that is easily large enough for the lasagne sheets to cook in horizontally. If I was cooking any pasta, I’d normally pour a little olive oil into the empty pan before filling it with water as it helps to stop the pasta sticking together. I’d done that before on the odd occasion I’d precooked lasagne but the leetle sheets still always stuck together. This time however inspiration struck and instead once I’d got the water on to boil I poured about 1/2 teaspoon of oil onto one side of each sheet and then “painted” it with the basting brush. I can report here that rhe sheets did NOT stuck to each other! Further testing will elevate this to being a new item of Kitchen Lore but in the meantime it has a gold rating as a Kitchen Theory trick. While the sheets are cooking to just pre-al dente fill the (clean) kitchen sink with some cold water, and also fill a tray with cold water. Remove the paste sheets carefully from the hot water one by one which your favourite implement and drop them into the sink of water. Rinse thoroughly, then transfer to the tray for carrying back to your work surface.
3. Smear each sheet with a thick, even layer of the tahini and spinach. Roll and place lined up in a very large baking dish. The rolls will get significantly longer as the pasta continues to cook in the oven, so remember to cater for that in selecting the tray.
4. Meanwhile….de-skin all the cherry tomatoes using boiling then cold water baths. Keep the tomatoes aside. Compost all the skins.
5. Lightly cook all the other ingredients except the herbs to create a fairly saucy tomato flavoured italian mushroom and beany sauce thing. You need enough of this to be able to evenly cover the cannelloni rolls so adjust if necessary with another mushroom and some more wine etc. Once cooked sufficiently, then turn off and add the cherry tomatoes and the fresh herbs. The goal here is to not have the tomatoes get all mushed up. Presentation iz everything darlink! The herbs are added only now so their flavour released during the baking stage, rather than boiling off during this preparatory stage.
6. Pour the sauce over the cannelloni, taking care to make sure that all pasta has some sauce on it.
7. Bake covered for about 30 minutes.

Served with a large bowl of mixed olives and some fresh baked wholeflour bread.

I have to add that this was very good. Though I am of the opinion that I wouldn’t make this regularly as it is a lot of additional work for what is basically a variation on lasagne.

Sesame beetroot stems

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Green eggs and ham.
Fred and Ginger.
Imperialism and the industrial military complex.
Beetroot and sesame.

Some things in the universe are just natural pairings.

Our options to explore these pairings are naturally limited. Don’t eat eggs or ham, Fred and Ginger are worm food, and trying the bomb the world into peace is misguided in the VegHead’s humble opinion. That leaves us with beetroot and sesame, which is hardly a poor choice…

This is sufficient to make a side dish for two. If you want to extend it and have no more stems to hand, add some grated raw beetroot, or some diced cooked beetroot (you probably have the fresh stems because you just bought a clutch of fresh beetroot, after all).

Needing to have…

  • Stems and leaves from 4+ fresh beetroots
  • 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds; roasted
  • 2 tablespoons of light tahini
  • 1 teaspoon of tamari
  • 1 tablespoon of sesame oil

Needing to do…

  • Wash the stems and leaves; discarding any cruddy bits
  • Chop the stems into lengths of approximately 5cms
  • Chop the leaves
  • Blanch the stems in a covered pot in a very small amount of water. After a minute or so add the leaves (basically the leaves take a little less time than the stems do to cook – once you’ve done this once you’ll get a feel for it). Add the tamari at the same time.
  • The leaves will cook very quickly. Do not allow to boil dry. There should be a small amount of liquid left by the time the leaves are blanched.
  • Remove from the heat and stir through the tahini, the sesame oil and the sesame seeds.
  • Serve immediately