Recipe in progress: Olive tahini spread
What's my recipe missing?
Lately I've had a hankering for tahini — a key ingredient in many great Mediterranean foods, including hummus and halvah — and when I was making grilled ham and Swiss with soup this weekend, I thought it would be the perfect time to try inventing a tahini spread with some ingredients I had lying around.
It tasted alright, and would probably taste better on something else, but I think it was missing something. Here is the C+* recipe-in-progress I came up with:
Olive Tahini Spread, Version 0.1
(Makes enough for two sandwiches)
Ingredients
1/8 of a red onion
1 clove garlic
6 Kalamata olives
1 1/2 tsp. butter/olive oil spread
1 tsp. ground black peper
1 1/2 tbsp. tahini
Preparation
• Dice and pan fry onions and garlic in butter/olive oil spread until soft
• Dice olives and heat in pan
• Mix tahini, black pepper, and onions, olive, garlic combination in glass dish
(Here is a good video from Reluctant Gourmet on how to dice onions like a pro. Sorry, but it offers no tricks to make them sting your eyes less. When I cut onions I look like I got pepper sprayed)
Verdict?
Tahini is a bit like peanut butter, but less viscous and less sweet. The taste doesn't overpower the salty ham and sharp Swiss cheese, but it doesn't quite add enough, even with the pepper. I think it needs a kick — lemon juice or even something a bit spicy. And again, it's probably not ideal on a ham sandwich.
So what's this spread missing? And what would it taste great on?
*Grading system is relative to my own cooking ability.