Tahini was one of those food items that I had long since written off as something I didn’t particularly like. I didn’t mind it in other peoples cooking, but I certainly wasn’t going to be eating it by the spoonful from the jar. If you can imagine a cat coughing up a fur ball, that would be me trying to eat a spoonful of tahini.

Then I decided that I wanted to make houmus for The Monkeys though. When making houmus it needs tahini, everyone knows that, so I was going to have to revisit my spoonful of fur ball.

I decided to try the unhulled darker type as it had been the hulled version I had always tried in the past. With teaspoon at the ready, I dipped in.

Holy houmus, it was delicious.

It tried another small piece to see if my taste buds were tricking me. Nope, it really was. It was like peanut butter…but sesame butter. Now I don’t know if my taste buds have simply changed over time or unhulled tastes ridiculously better than hulled. Either way, it’s now a staple in the fridge and The Monkeys can have as much houmus as they want, as this dip is dead easy to make.

Houmus

400g canned chick peas

1 clove raw garlic

1/4 tsp coriander

1/2 tsp cumin

4 tbls olive oil

3 tbls lemon juice

1 tbls unhulled tahini

salt and black pepper to taste

Whiz it all up in a hand held blender. Spoon it out on to a dish, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with a little paprika.