Food: Open up to sesame

My first foray into the dark and murky world of tahini. Well worth it. Even if I did discover to my discomfort that neat tahini sucks all the liquid out of your mouth. 

Here was I thinking it was just 'the extra ingredient in houmous that you can never actually be bothered to go and find'. But no. It has multiple uses apparently. So Ottolenghi says in his deep fried cauliflower recipe in the Saturday Guardian. Ok, that sounds like a pain in the a^*se to make. Let's give it a go.

Firstly, need tahini. This is easy to get when you live out East or probably anywhere in London to be fair. However, I could only get the Greek version, which Lord Ottolenghi of the Giant Meringues declares inferior to the Middle Eastern one. Feck it, I bought the Greek one. But then I got creeping doubts... what if, what if this little improvisation ruined the delicate balance of flavours. And it would all be down to my own laziness. Goddamit. So had to go and find middle eastern version.

Also had to somehow locate the impossible sounding pomegranate molasses. Yeah, sure, between the cornflakes and the salad cream in aisle 6. I sometimes think that Ottolenghi adds untraceable ingredients so that most people can never quite make anything to the standard that he does. Maybe he makes them up. Waitrose looked at me like I was a crazed woman and humoured me (because they're so nice) by calling the store manager. More confused looks and points to the kosher shelf (ooh, beetroot horseradish, bought it). Then I go further down Edgware road and find an amazing Lebanese shop with three types of the stuff. Green Valley it's called. Although I did once buy a bag of flowery leafy fancy tea that had crawlies in it from there, I am growing more in love with this shop.

The hardest part was finding all the stuff. After that it was a pleasure to mix it all together in a gloopy mess and dollop it over some fried cauliflower. I thought it was me who had discovered the secret delight that is fried cauliflower, fried so long it turns brown and almost crispy and takes on a new amazing flavour. But it seems the middle easterns got there first. 

So yeah, tahini, interesting new taste. Especially when combined with an impromptu (but bloody delicious) cocktail that Michael spontaneously invented, inspired by our Courvoiser History of Food outing the other night - brandy, cassis, orange juice and Galliano.  

Only trouble is that I'm now left with two jars of of the runny brown stuff and a boyfriend who, after loving it the first night, has now told me he doesn't actually like it much.