Tahina: how to make sesame sauce at home

Do you know tahini? Until a few years ago it was an exotic ingredient, obscure to many home cooks, but now its international fame is growing a lot. In fact, it is likely that you have come across this ingredient while reading a restaurant menu or a recipe book. And of course you wondered: what is tahini?

Tahini, also known as tahini or tahini, is one delicious and nutritious specialty of Middle Eastern cuisine, also widespread in North Africa, Turkey and Greece. It is a thick sauce obtained by grinding sesame seeds shelled and lightly toasted, the paste of which is then mixed with a neutral-flavored oil to create a creamier consistency.

Now more and more used in our dishes, it is in fact likely that you have tasted it in your hummus or in salad dressing, or as an accompaniment to fruit or a secret ingredient in the best desserts.

Although interest in this ingredient has only exploded in recent years, tahini is of very ancient origin. The first mention of this sauce dates back to more than 4 thousand years ago, when it was customary to serve the so-called gods sesame wine. Historian Herodotus also witnessed the cultivation of sesame in the Tigris and Euphrates region of Mesopotamia more than 3500 years ago.

At the time, the sesame plant was cultivated for its drought tolerance; in fact it flourished where other crops withered and died. Over the years, this plant has spread to different continents, where it was used in different ways. In China, for example, it was burned to produce soot for ink blocks. The Egyptians used it as a fuel in their lamps. In India they used sesame oil in funeral rituals. Finally, in some cultures, sesame seeds were also used as currency and as medicines.

Today sesame seeds are grown throughout Asia and East Africa and are still used in a variety of ways, but the Middle Eastern specialty tahini seasoning is the most common.

The tahini sauce as we know it today originated inancient Persia, where it was called “ardeh”. From there it then arrived in Israel, where for centuries only the aristocracy and the rich could obtain the ingredients to prepare it. Little by little she made her way into oriental cuisine, especially in China, Japan and Korea, and then landed in the 40s in the first natural and organic food stores in the United States.