Tahini sauce seems to be everywhere these days. Be careful, though, because the sauce is different from tahini paste, which is the basic ingredient used in the sauce. Many of us know about tahini because of the prevalence of hummusâtahini paste and chickpeas are the two main ingredients in this traditional Middle Eastern dish.
Hummus has been eaten in Egypt and the Levant since at least the 13th century, when the earliest known recipe for a pureed, spiced chickpea dish was found in Cairo. Over the past decade itâs become wildly popular. Some believe thatâs due to the interest in Middle Eastern cooking that followed the publication of Yotam Ottolenghiâs cookbooks (his first, âPlenty,â launched his career and came out in 2011). Others maintain that it came about after PepsiCo took over as Sabraâs parent company, flooding this country with samples of Sabra hummus between 2008 and 2010.
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Until my first visit to Israel shortly after the Six Day War, I knew absolutely nothing about the magnificence of Middle Eastern cuisine.
Raised on a steady diet of Jewish-style Polish food, lovingly cooked and baked to perfection by my mother, Genia, I could look forward to such simple and tasty dishes as lima bean-and-onion dip, kreplach, sauerkraut-and-potato soup, kugel, meatballs in tomato sauce, candied turkey legs and apple cake.