Saturday, August 21, 2010

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.

14 comments:

  1. There was some preground black sesame at my grocery store I used.

    I didn't like the result nearly as well as the stuff I used to pick up at Trader Joes. What do you flavor yours with?

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  2. Garlic, lemon, salt, and olive oil. A little dribble of sesame oil if it needs a kick.

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  3. Thank youuu so much for posting this. I've been making hummus in Japan for a couple of years now and it's always been missing something. I knew it was the tahini and I tried doing the sesame seeds in the food processor but it resulted in disaster.
    I'm totally having hummus tonight. Yay!

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  4. Oh this sounds delish! I've got to get our kitchen decked so that I can follow up on some of these recipes :)

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  5. Glad to be of service, you guys! Hoping to make some more posts about other veggie hacks I've come up with :)

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  6. Thanks for posting this, I had been hoping you would after you first mentioned the concrete hummus!! I had thought about ordering tahini from Alishan but it's oh so expensive. Yay!

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  7. Green, you're welcome! These jars run about 400 yen, but since you only need a couple of tablespoons to make a batch of hummus, I'm thinking one jar could make two or three batches.

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  8. i totally did the sesame-seeds-in-the-blender thing in guatemala. it was unsatisfying, but a little bit of sesame oil (i was living with a japanese prof, so i had wasabi+seaweed+dried shitakes+rice vinegar on hand!) helped. also, there were no lemons, so i made cilantro-lime hummus. and it was goood.

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  9. Tubini! Hi! Do you have a blog? I can't see your profile.

    I like the sound of your latin-am hummus. Nice... but makes me want to make pico de gallo.

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  10. Just wanted to let you know, Tokyo Family Restaurant in Shibuya has AMAZING hummus! I would eat it plain.

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  11. Thanka Anon! I'll be sure to check it out.

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  12. Hey now you can get Hummus in Hamamatsu, in shizuoka, at:

    Tirnan-Og, KK House, and a place called Slowporch in Hamakita. The brand they have is called Satorijava Traders Hummus.

    4 flavors: Sun-dried tomato, edamame, regular, and artichoke.

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  13. I'll be sure to keep it in mind for my next trip to Hamamatsu :) Last time I was there was a couple of years ago, to watch my sister run a 10K. I might have to take advantage of all the Brazilians and other Latin Americans in that town to search out for S.Am cuisine!

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