veggie japan hacks #1: hummus

Living here, I don't have access to some of those ready-made vegetarian products that I'm so spoiled by back home. There are no faux deli slices, tofurkeys, or other processed veggie standins.  (Even things that are veg and easier to find in Japan, like natto, sometimes have hidden fish stock in them.) I've resigned myself to that, and it's probably better in the long run, because it's forced me to cook from scratch things I used to be able to pick up for a song at the supermarket. 

One staple food that is ubiquitous on the west coast of old Rice Country is hummus, almost impossible to find here on the island. Most of the ingredients of this simple dip are relatively easy to suss out (I've found garbanzo beans at Seijo Ishii, Kaldi Coffee, and Don Quixote), but one thing, tahini, is a bit more difficult, unless you drag yourself over to Shamiam in Ekoda, western Tokyo.

There are a couple of ways I've gotten around this. One is to just pulverize sesame seeds in a food processor, maybe with some added sesame or olive oil to get it smooth. I haven't managed to get it as smooth as tahini, but it works.

Something that works much better is Japan's answer to tahini, nerigoma. It's just sesame paste, sold in little jars, usually near the other sesame products. The only ingredient is sesame seeds, and it comes in white or black.

I used black the last time I made hummus, because it was what I had on hand. The result looked like wet concrete, but the taste was the same, and really easy.