Tahini

Tahini is a paste of crushed sesame seeds that is highly used in Middle Eastern cooking. Tahini mixed with garlic, lemon juice, and salt and thinned with water constitutes taratoor, a sauce that is eaten as a dip with Arabic bread as part of a selection of meze, or hors d’oeuvres. Taratoor is mixed with ground chickpeas for hummus bi tahini, another hors d’oeuvre dip. Tahini is also used as a sauce ingredient for fish and vegetable dishes.