Sesame - Cuisine

Cuisine

Sesame seed is a common ingredient in various cuisines. It is used whole in cooking for its rich nutty flavour. Sesame seeds are sometimes added to breads, including bagels and the tops of hamburger buns. Sesame seeds may be baked into crackers, often in the form of sticks. In Sicily and France, the seeds are eaten on bread (called "ficelle sésame", sesame thread). In Greece the seeds are also used in cakes.

Fast-food restaurants use buns with tops sprinkled with sesame seeds. In fact, about one-third of Mexico's sesame crop is exported to the United States and purchased by McDonald's for their sesame seed buns (The Nut Factory 1999).

In Asia, sesame seeds are sprinkled onto some sushi style foods. In Japan whole seeds are found in many salads and baked snacks and tan and black sesame seed varieties are roasted and used to make the flavouring gomashio. East Asian cuisines, like Chinese cuisine use sesame seeds and oil in some dishes, such as dim sum, sesame seed balls (Chinese: 麻糰; pinyin: mátuǎn or 煎堆; Cantonese: jin deui), and the Vietnamese bánh rán. Sesame flavour (through oil and roasted or raw seeds) is also very popular in Korean cuisine, used to marinate meat and vegetables. Chefs in tempura restaurants blend sesame and cottonseed oil for deep-frying.

Sesame, or "simsim" as it is known in East Africa, is used in African cuisine. In Togo the seeds are a main soup ingredient and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and in the north of Angola, wangila is a delicious dish of ground sesame, often served with smoked fish or lobster.

In Manipur (India) black sesame is used in the preparation of Thoiding and in Singju (a kind of salad). Thoiding is prepared with ginger and chili and vegetables are used in the spicy Singu dish. In Assam, black sesame seeds are used to make Til Pitha and Tilor laru (sesame seed balls) during bihu. In Punjab and Tamil Nadu (both in India), a sweet ball called "Pinni" (پنی) in Urdu and 'Ell urundai' in Tamil, "Ellunda"(എള്ളുണ്ട) in Malayalam, "Yellunde" (sesame ball, usually in jaggery) in Kannada and tilgul in Marathi is made of its seeds mixed with sugar. Also in Tamil Nadu, sesame oil used extensively in their cuisine, Milagai Podi, a ground powder made of sesame and dry chili is used to enhance flavor and consumed along with other traditional foods such as idli.

Sesame seed cookies and wafers, both sweet and savory, are popular in places like Charleston, South Carolina. Sesame seeds, also called benne, are believed to have been brought into 17th century colonial America by West African slaves. Since then, they have become part of various American cuisines.

In Caribbean cuisine, sugar and white sesame seeds are combined into a bar resembling peanut brittle and sold in stores and street corners.

Sesame is a popular and essential ingredient in many Middle Eastern cuisines. Sesame seeds is made into a paste called tahini (used in various ways, including hummus bi tahini) and the Middle Eastern confection halvah. Ground and processed, the seeds is also used in sweet confections. In South Asia, Middle East, East Asian cuisines, popular confectionery are made from sesame mixed with honey or syrup and roasted into a sesame candy. In Japanese cuisine goma-dofu (胡麻豆腐) is made from sesame paste (Tahini) and starch.

Mexican cuisine refers to sesame seeds as Ajonjolí. It is mainly used as a sauce additive, such as mole or adobo. It is often also used to sprinkle over artisan breads and baked in traditional form to coat the smooth dough, especially on whole wheat flat breads or artisan nutrition bars, such as alegrías.

Sesame oil is sometimes used as a cooking oil in different parts of the world.

Although sesame leaves are edible as a potherb, recipes for Korean cuisine calling for "sesame leaves" are often a mistranslation, and really mean perilla.