Recipe: Homemade Techina (Sesame Paste) Dressing

Ingredients:
1 large clove garlic
Fresh parsley or coriander, washed and dried
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1/2 cup raw techina, or sesame paste
1 tsp. ground cumin
Salt to taste
About a half cup of water (Perhaps more.)

Method: Chop the garlic and parsley in a dry food processor until fine. Add the other ingredients, keeping back some water until the mixture is the right texture. Most people prefer it slightly runny. Keep in mind that it congeals some in the refrigerator. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary. If you use bottled lemon juice, the preservatives will help the techina keep longer (I’m not recommending this, I’m just saying.)
When serving, put enough for one meal in a separate bowl and don’t return the leftover dressing to the original batch.

Comments

  1. I suggest whole kernel tehina, I think it’s much tastier than regular.

  2. I have techina golmit in a squeeze bottle i keep in the fridge. I love drizzling it on chicken, schnitzel, meat, vegetables. I can’t think of anything i don’t like it with.
    I used to give Avital techina with apples and bananas for breakfast.

  3. you have been tagged!!

  4. mother in israel says

    Batya, I don’t measure either. But for the purposes of the blog, I gave quantities.
    Abbi, that’s a good idea! Tamiri, can you name a particular brand?

  5. I do it much more simply. And I never measure, just “eyeball it.”

  6. Brands: if you buy in the supermarket, BARAKA brand in the bottle with brown on it (they have different colors for different types) is the best. 10.99 nis at Chatxi Chinam, when I last looked.
    For an unbeatable treat, my parents brought us real live fresh tehina from Saba Chaviv (badatz or some other mehadrin hechsher) up in the north Kibbutz Parud. You can have a look here http://www.sabahabib.com/products.asp. The tehina is divine. It’s so tasty as is, that it’s like halva. Rich, creamy… what tehina should be all about. You can stop in there if you are ever near Tzfat. They also brought a jerry can of Saba Chaviv olive oil. Mmmm

  7. mother in israel says

    Tamiri, you can write the official perush* on this blog.
    *Textual Commentary

  8. BTW, with regards to Shabbat prep (there IS a reason for smichut Tehina to Shabbat preps, right?): the tehina is one of those things that needs to be done before Shabbat. You can’t mix water in to dilute it.

  9. Tamiri, what’s the melacha of dilution? (honest curiosity)
    I won’t tell my MIL, she makes techina on shabbat morning all the time which she serves with mushrooms and peapods.
    Would you be allowed to mix the techina with other foods or is it just an issue of dilution?