Open Sesame

Ali Baba is a fictional character from the Arabian tale “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”  One day while working in the forest he observed the “forty thieves” entering their secret cave where all of their purloined treasure was stashed.

To open the cave they must utter the secret words:  “Open Sesame.”  Ali Baba returns at a later point in time and pilfers some of the riches.  This sets into motion a cascade of violence whereby Ali Baba’s brother, and all but the leader of the thieves are slayed.  In the perfidious denouement, the final thief is murdered and Ali Baba and his cohorts all live happily ever after.

What is Sesame

Sesame is an annual, flowering plant prized for its seeds, from which the equally valued sesame oil is produced.  Sesame was one of the first plants grown for its oil and culinary uses.  It dates back to 3,000 BC in Assyria, an empire centered around modern day Iraq.  It was also cultivated in India 4,000 years ago.

Sesame is indispensable in Middle-Eastern, Far-Eastern, and Indian cooking. From Asia it made its way to Africa where slaves are credited with introducing it to North America.  It is even grown in Mexico and other parts of Latin America.  Needless to say, while Asia may be the epicenter, sesame is beloved the world over.  Currently, India and China are two of the world’s largest producers.

Sesame seeds are most often a light, ivory color, but there are also brown, black and red varieties.  They have a nutty, slightly sweet flavor that intensifies when toasted.

To toast them, simply place them in a dry skillet over medium heat, occasionally tossing until they start to brown and give off their nutty aroma.  Because of their high fat content they turn rancid in a short period of time.  They can be stored up to three months refrigerated or six months frozen.  Of course previously frozen seeds will not taste as good as fresh.

How To Use Sesame Seeds

Sesame seeds are employed in a seemingly infinite number of ways:  breads, cakes, cookies and many other baked goods; desserts, soups, salads, stir-fried dishes, sauces etc.  In the Middle East they are made into a paste called tahini which is incorporated into hummus (mashed chick peas) and baba ghanoush (purred eggplant).

In Japan they’re used on sushi, in Mexico in Mole and adobo sauces, in China in dim sum, and in Korea in marinades.  In Cuba they’re combined with sugar and made into a peanut-brittle type bar. Sesame seed balls (sesame combined with various other ingredients and formed into a ball), are popular in China, Pakistan, and India.

And, let us not forget the billions of hamburgers with sesame seed adorned buns sold by McDonalds worldwide.  These are just some of the highlights of one of the world’s most versatile comestibles.

Sesame Oil

Sesame oil comes in light and dark forms.  It is primarily composed of polyunsaturated fat.  Dark sesame oil is made from roasted sesame seeds which accentuates their naturally nutty flavor.  Sesame oil has a high smoke point, rendering it ideal for sautéing and deep frying.  However, the light version is usually used for cooking.

Light sesame oil is excellent for salad dressings, especially ones composed of Asian ingredients.  The dark sesame oil is more often treated like extra virgin olive oil, i.e., used as a flavor enhancer, a marinade or sauce ingredient, or drizzled on a stir-fried dish as a finishing touch.  Mix dark sesame oil with soy sauce, rice wine vinegar and some chile oil for a yummy dipping sauce for your Chinese victuals.

Health Folk Lore

The ancient Assyrians employed sesame oil as a medication.  Women believed it promoted youth and beauty.  Roman soldiers felt it gave them strength and energy.  The Indians utilize it as a massage oil.  But it doesn’t stop there.

Sesame is yet another food that has been hailed as a veritable panacea.  At one point or another in history, sesame has been claimed to treat hair loss, headaches, blurred vision, liver ailments, depression, senility, bone disease, and bowel problems.  Moreover it has been heralded as an anti-cancer agent, an immune system booster, and a promoter of heart and circulatory system health.  Whoever thought a Big Mac could be so healthy?

Obviously sesame is no miracle cure and most of its salubrious allegations are old wives’ tales.  What sesame is unequivocally good for, (aside from unsealing magical treasure troves), is eating.  They add a wonderful dimension to a myriad of dishes.  Here’s my recipe for stir-fried snow peas which utilizes both sesame seeds and sesame oil.

ASIAN STYLE SNOW PEAS

1 lb. snow peas, trimmed.
2 teaspoons sesame seeds, toasted
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1 yellow pepper, julienned
2 scallions, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons light sesame oil
Pepper to taste

Boil the snow peas in salted water for 15 seconds and then immediately submerge them in ice water.  Toast the sesame seeds in a skillet over medium heat just for a minute or so until they brown and give off a nutty essence.

Mix the peas, peppers, scallions, sesame seeds and soy sauce in a large bowl.  Sauté in a skillet, or stir-fry in a wok, the vegetable mixture in the sesame oil for 2-3 minutes or until the peppers are soft.

Season with pepper and additional soy sauce if need be.  Or finish with a drizzle of dark sesame oil.

Chef Mark R. Vogel

I always consider it a good day when I learn something new, especially when I discover a secret about how to enhance the flavors of foods I love and serve.

So it was a very good day indeed recently when I learned a whole bunch of secrets about—of all things—olive oil.

I learned them from a guy who calls himself “The Olive Oil Hunter.” I found his tips on how to buy and use the freshest and most flavorful olive oils so informative that I had to share them with you.

Fresh Oil Makes All the Difference in Flavor!

Perhaps like you, I seldom let too many days pass when I don’t use olive oil, either in my cooking or to drizzle on top of something I just cooked. But truth be told, I never paid that much attention to the olive oil I was using and thought of it as just a fat for transferring heat from the pan to the ingredient I was cooking.

That has all changed since I recently interviewed T. J. Robinson, an award-winning chef and food journalist who travels around the world looking for the best olive oils available right at harvest time, when they are at their zenith of freshness, flavor, and nutritional value.

The problem with most olive oil available to us home cooks is that most of the really good stuff never makes it to our shores. Why?

Most olive oils imported into the United States are shipped up to a year after they have been pressed and bottled. Then they are sent over here by slow moving cargo ships, then sent to distributors, then sold to stores who put it on their shelves for who knows how long.

You may find a “sell by” date on the bottle but rarely will you find a date revealing when the olives were harvested, pressed and bottled. This is so important because the fresher the oil, the higher the flavor (and the healthier it is, too).

What You Need To Know About Olive Oil

In my interview with T. J. Robinson, I asked him questions I wanted answered about olive oil and how to find and purchase the freshest, healthiest, and best-tasting available product online. Let me warn you the interview is long, but if you are interested in learning about both the culinary and health benefits of olive oil, you are going to want to read this interview in full.

T. J. sent me three bottles of fresh-pressed olive oil from Spain, and I can tell you I have never tasted any olive oil this fresh before. In fact, at first I didn’t know what to make of the fresh grass-like flavor and hay aroma.

The flavor overpowered my taste buds until I drizzled some over some roasted vegetables and potatoes. It added a whole new layer of flavor that I have only experienced in a few high-end restaurants. I asked T. J. about this experience in the interview.

Free Bottle of Rare Fresh-Pressed Olive Oil

For a limited time, T. J. is offering my readers a free bottle of “the brightest, most insanely flavorful olive oil on the planet” for free, including shipping, to let you taste for yourself how great fresh pressed olive oil is. This offer expires on Monday, May 31, 2010 or when his free bottles are gone.

I urge you to read my interview with T. J. about olive oil and the benefits it can bring you before you check out his special invitation, but if you can’t wait and want to read more about his club and sign up for a free bottle of olive oil, go to Fresh Pressed Olive Oil Club at this link:

I can’t tell you how excited I am about being able to introduce you to The Olive Oil Hunter. This is one of those rare times I can present a product that is virtually impossible to find in any supermarket and can change the way you look at one of my favorite ingredients. And I’m not alone in that conviction. Here’s what celebrity chef Mario Batali says about fresh-pressed olive oil:

“If you can, get your hands on something they call olio nuovo, that’s what they call the new oil right when it’s pressed…and what you’ll taste is this almost piquant, more viscous, intensely green liquid that is a little cloudy maybe. That’s the best part of olive oil that you’ll ever find.”

Learn how to receive your Free bottle of Olive Oil here

Back to the Grind

More often than not in life, when we expend additional effort and time on an endeavor, our results are more fruitful.  This is absolutely true in the culinary world.  There are three main reasons why a top notch restaurant staffed with professional chefs can produce a superior meal as compared to the average home cook.

The first is the quality of the ingredients.  World class restaurants fanatically seek out the best producers for their various products.  The second is technique.  A chef knows all the countless little extra steps (and how to perform them correctly), that accentuate the flavor of a dish.  The final element is using not only the right equipment, but equipment of high quality.

The average home cook usually doesn’t have the time to visit multiple stores and farmer’s markets scoping out the prime specimens of each ingredient they need.  Nor would it be practical for them to have shipments of fresh food items arriving daily from large scale producers strewn about the country.

Jumping to the third factor, i.e., equipment, space and financial limitations may prohibit individuals from procuring restaurant-level apparatuses.  But the second factor, i.e., technique, can be within the grasp of almost anyone.  People can learn cooking methodology and hence improve the quality of their domestic concoctions.  Case in point:  Grinding your own spices.

Difference Between Spices and Herbs

Spices are aromatic seasonings that come from the bark, (cinnamon), buds, (cloves), fruit, (paprika), roots, (ginger), or seeds, (nutmeg), of plants.  Herbs, by contrast, are the leafy parts of plants such as basil, mint, or oregano.  Many spices are available in whole form or ground such as nutmeg, cloves, coriander, cumin, fennel seeds, achiote, black pepper, hot peppers, and many others.  Some, like paprika, are only available ground.  But for the purposes of our present discussion, I’d like to focus on the spices whereby you have a choice of acquiring them in their whole, as opposed to their ground form.

Depending on the recipe in question, you might employ a spice whole.  This is done where you want some of the essence of the spice without consuming it directly, possibly because it may be too overpowering.  Examples include studding a ham with whole cloves or throwing a few dried hot peppers into your General Tso’s chicken.  But of course there are innumerable applications where ground spices are called for.  Here’s one little corner of the culinary world where the home cook can stand toe to toe with a professional chef with minimal ancillary effort.

Buying and Grinding

Buying your spices whole and grinding them yourself will universally produce greater flavor than employing their pre-ground counterparts.  Unlike a stellar Bordeaux, spices do not improve with age.  Quite the contrary, they deteriorate, be them whole or ground.  The ground however, degrade even faster.  Even a brand new jar of a ground spice will not pack as much punch as a fresh whole specimen.

Spices contain essential oils and other flavor compounds which quite simply dissipate quicker once pulverized.  The general rule of thumb when it comes to shelf life is six months for ground spices and one year for whole.  But again, even the first half-year of a ground spice’s fragrance is not equivalent to the same aged whole spice.

The beauty of this issue is that for a small investment in time and money, you can reap high rewards, or more bang for your buck, idiomatically speaking.  A decent spice grinder can be procured for $25 or less.  Many of these also double as coffee bean grinders.  But be forewarned, if you grind your own coffee beans, I strongly encourage you to have one grinder for coffee and another for spices.  No matter how well you clean it, using one grinder interchangeable will inevitably taint the flavor of your coffee.

How to Match Spices with Food

Depending on different recipes and individual tastes, there’s practically an infinite combination of spices that can be ground together to produce a particular flavor profile.  While you can feel free to indulge your whimsy and personal palate, keep two guidelines in mind.  While there are certainly exceptions, a loose generalization is to employ spices that are geographically similar in origin.

One of the things that distinguishes Chinese from Mediterranean cuisine for example, is the incorporation of ingredients indigenous to that part of the world.  Natural products that have developed from the same bioclimate tend to share more affinity than ones from discrepant environments.  Thus, Sichuan peppercorns would blend better with star anise than dried tarragon.

The second issue to consider when producing a ground spice amalgamation is knowing which spices are more pungent than others.  This is to ensure that a very potent spice, (such as nutmeg or allspice) doesn’t overpower the other constituents.

Below are some spice blends to get you started on your grinding journey.  With the exception of Chinese five-spice powder, (which has a specific recipe), all of these combos can be augmented to suit your personal taste.  I rarely measure my spice blends and simply eyeball the quantities to suit the moment.  Some of the ingredients below are only available ground, (such as onion and garlic powder).  But in the spirit of this discourse, grind any ingredient that is available whole.

FIVE-SPICE POWDER
(Equal amounts of the following)

Sichuan peppercorns
Fennel seeds
Star Anise
Cinnamon
Cloves

LATIN SPICE BLEND

Dried hot peppers
Cumin
Coriander
Achiote
Onion powder
Garlic Powder
Salt & black pepper

Additional optional ingredients include paprika and oregano.

DUCK SPICES
We used this combination in one restaurant I worked on our duck confit.  But try it on roasted duck or chicken as well.

Cinnamon
Cloves
Star Anise
Bay leaves
Cumin Coriander

INDIAN SPICE BLEND
(Better known as garam masala, such Indian spice blends are briefly toasted in a dry sauté pan to release the essential oils of the spices and intensify its fragrance)

Turmeric
Coriander
Cumin
Fenugreek
Black Pepper
Dried Ginger
Fennel seeds
Allspice berries
Dried hot peppers
Cardamom pods

Chef Mark R. Vogel