“Tehina is the same as ‘tahini,’ the Greek spelling for the pure, unctuous sesame seed paste.”
Israelis love tehina like Americans love Doritos and wrestling—unconditionally and a little bit irrationally. The country doesn’t run without it. Israelis eat it raw and use it as a dip. They put it on sandwiches and salads. They sauce fish and meat with it. They use it in sweets. They add it to hummus by the truckload. Although I was born in Israel, my family moved to Pittsburgh when I was two. Growing up, my entire Israeli identity was limited to a few Hebrew phrases, usually shouted by my father: Maspeek! (enough!), pounding the table for emphasis when I misbehaved, which was often; hazak (hard), encouraging me to blow my nose; kvissa (laundry chute), reminding me not to leave my clothes all over the place.
But part of our household identity was the can of tehina that was always on our kitchen table. Not as much for my Bulgarian father, who lived most of his life in Israel; he couldn’t have been happier in the land of the hamburger. But for my American mother, who had fallen in love with Israel and left for the States before she was ready, that can of tehina represented her adopted home. I didn’t touch the stuff as a child. My idea of a three-Michelin-star meal was peas and rice—served on separate plates. I remember watching my father pull sizzling lamb chops off the grill, dripping with fat and juices, and proceed to smother them with tehina. All I could think was, why the hell would you ruin a beautiful piece of meat like that?
I know I’m not the only one to view tehina with suspicion. As an American, I understand this. As an Israeli, I feel that it’s my duty to act as a spokesman for the tehina lobby. First, let’s start with some terminology. Tehina is the same thing as ‘tahini,’ which is the typical (and more recognizable) Greek spelling. Tehina is how Israelis refer to the identical product. It’s the word I grew up with, so it’s what I use in this book. When I say tehina, I generally mean pure sesame paste, made from toasting and grinding raw sesame seeds. If you see a jar of tehina that has more than one ingredient, drop it and run. When I say prepared tehina, I am referring to my Basic Tehina Sauce (see recipe) made from blending tehina with garlic, lemon, water, and salt.
PAPRIKA stands in totemic columns in the Jerusalem market, ready to be dusted on a plate of hummus.
Until very recently, it was hard to find great tehina here in the States, and what was available could be quite bad. Tehina was either considered a health food—sentenced to dusty shelves in the natural foods aisle—or an ethnic product exiled to Middle Eastern markets. That can on our kitchen table growing up was full of separated tehina, with a greasy slick on top and a thick layer of sludge stuck to the bottom. These were signs that our tehina was old and poorly made. But for the longest time, that orange and brown can was practically the only brand readily available in the States. It was not a great advertisement for tehina. I didn’t appreciate how good tehina could be until I started cooking. Like most ingredients, there is the mass-produced stuff and then there is the artisanal product that reminds you what the fuss is about. I remember standing on the floor of a tehina-processing workshop in Nazareth, inhaling the rich and heady aroma of toasted sesame seeds and watching a stream of fresh tehina pour from the grinder into a vat below. I felt a strong urge to stick my head under the tap; we did warm shots instead. The taste of properly roasted, high-quality sesame seeds (the best come from Ethiopia), still warm from the grinding stone, is like a slap in the face compared to the stuff in a can. In a good way.
The key to making great tehina is to drive away as much water and fibrous material from the sesame seeds as possible, until you’re left with the pure fat. At the Al Arz workshop in Nazareth, first they remove the hulls from the sesame seeds. The seeds are then slow roasted in an open steel drum with a rotating arm that keeps them in constant motion. The drum is heated from beneath using steam, effectively creating a giant double boiler. This is the gentlest possible method and it eliminates any scorched flavors that can result from unevenly roasted seeds.
“Great tehina is creamy, nutty, and rich, with a delicate sweetness. Roasting gives it a slight smokiness.”
Great tehina is creamy, nutty, and rich, with a delicate sweetness. Roasting the sesame seeds gives the sauce its earthy and slightly smoky backbone. The mouthfeel is unctuous, with a finish that’s long and smooth. Used properly, tehina can bring back wayward dishes by balancing out sweetness and softening acidity. And it’s great at smoothing out rough edges (like Israelis, who are famous for being a bit prickly). When people tell me they don’t like tehina, they usually say it tastes bitter. American children aren’t generally exposed to bitter flavors. In Israel, on the other hand, a popular after-school snack is a slice of bread slathered with tehina and date molasses. It is the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich of Israel. Bitterness is an underappreciated but powerful tool in developing flavor. Great flavors rely on a balance of tastes, like the sweet and salty perfection of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Without the bitter, there would be no coffee or chocolate or beer. The economies of Brooklyn and Portland would crash and burn. And there would be no tehina.
Tehina is especially important in the traditional Israeli kosher kitchen because it can enrich savory dishes without using cream or butter and it can create satisfying desserts, too. It’s the Israeli mother sauce. But kosher or not, tehina is one of the most important and versatile staples in my kitchen. It might be the least sexy ingredient (it’s the color of wet sand; it sticks to the roof of your mouth), but I haven’t seen many culinary problems that tehina couldn’t solve.
The sweeter side of tehina shines in desserts like Tehina Shortbread Cookies and in the famous Halva candy.
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This is a delightful, improbable story, but nonetheless true: Three sisters from Philadelphia have set out to revolutionize the tahini business in America: Shelby Zitelman Stamm (above left), Jackie Zitelman Horvitz with her Israeli husband, Omri Horvitz (middle), and Amy Zitelman Hersch (far right) first brought me Soom Tahini to taste. Now, between Zahav, Federal Donuts, and our new hummus place, Dizengoff, we buy almost 1,400 pounds of the stuff a month! The Zitelman sisters are evangelists. “Americans have been stuck with hard and oily tahini. We come in at the top of the market with pure and delicious sesame butter,” says Amy. Soom’s tahini (soom soom is Hebrew for sesame seeds) is made from white seeds grown in Ethiopia’s abundant sunshine in its northwestern Humera district. The seeds are shipped to Israel for processing, overseen by Omri and Jackie, who then send the jars to us. (See Resources.)