I HATE HATE HATE those oil on the top butters...........
Posted by Tweety on Sep 04, 2011 · Member since Jan 2003 · 3135 posts
Just got a jar of organic tahini on sale. It was too good a deal to pass up, but it's one of those oil on the top things. How do you guys deal with this? Mix it? Dump it?
Don't dump it!! :nono:
Mix it in. You will need it. The oil rises to the top because it's been sitting for awhile.
If you dump it, the bottom will be hard as a rock.
Mix it in, and try to get to the bottom of the jar.
If it's soft enough (ie hasn't settled rock-hard yet), try inverting the jar and leaving it like that for awhile.
But do mix it back in.
what she said
Yep, mix it. I heard that keeping them upside down helps it so that it doesn't separate, but I haven' noticed a difference. The tahini I get is always so hard to mix up!
I've never dumped it, but would like to hear how you mix it...what exactly do you do? Like AC says it's always so hard to mix and it's even harder to get a consistency that mixes the hard bottom part with the oily top. I'm thinking it might be easier to take it out of the jar completely, mix with an immersion blender and then put back in the jar, but that's a lot of drama an eventually it will separate again. In the past I've mixed with a fork, but again mixing it entirely with rock hard bottom is an issue.
Do you happen to have the Joyva brand? It seems like the worst. I don't think I ever get it completely mixed. I just scoop out the hard part with some of the oil. Is it in the fridge? Mine is, so that makes it harder to mix. Maybe warming it up, and then mixing? I dunno.
I'd try turning it upside down like yabbit suggested, and when mixing just dig with the spoon to get to the bottom. Sometimes tahini is tough, though, so I just use some of the tougher part with the oily part.
I heard that keeping them upside down helps it so that it doesn't separate, but I haven't noticed a difference.
I just scoop out the hard part with some of the oil.
YEAH WELL SO DO I
Do you happen to have the Joyva brand? It seems like the worst.
Agreed. I also found it kind of bitter as I recall. I haven't bought it in years. Lately I've bought Arrowhead Mills and Once Again tahinis, which I don't find difficult to stir.
I buy cashew butter all the time and it's pretty tough to stir. I start by taking a butter knife and stabbing down into the hard part to let the oil get down there. Then I just stir and stir until my little arm gets tired. It's still a little lumpy but it works.
I've never dumped it, but would like to hear how you mix it...what exactly do you do? Like AC says it's always so hard to mix and it's even harder to get a consistency that mixes the hard bottom part with the oily top. I'm thinking it might be easier to take it out of the jar completely, mix with an immersion blender and then put back in the jar, but that's a lot of drama an eventually it will separate again. In the past I've mixed with a fork, but again mixing it entirely with rock hard bottom is an issue.
Warm it gently in a double boiler. Not enough to cook it, but warm it through and it should soften.
I have also added a bit of extra sesame oil when I get down to the hard part, the kind of toasted oil I get in the Asian supermarket. That seems to loosen it up even better than its own oil. I don't know why, but it does.
Yeah, it'll separate again, but for some reason the toasted oil is really easy to mix in and doesn't seem to separate as much.
Double broiler?? That's so 1960's. I'm not even sure what a double broiler is, much less have one. LOL
Wonder if microwaving it would work?
The brand is Woodstock Farms and I guess there's no easy way to mix it.
Dear Tweety: Double boiler = any saucepan that will fit inside a slightly bigger one. Put water in the bottom pan a little more than halfway up, put your top pan in and set it on the heat.
Or, really, if this is in a jar (which duh yabbit, it would be) you can just set the jar in a pan of water and warm it that way. Same principle.
And if you wanna get really classy ya call that a "bain marie."
Dear Tweety: Double boiler = any saucepan that will fit inside a slightly bigger one. Put water in the bottom pan a little more than halfway up, put your top pan in and set it on the heat.
That is so ghetto.
hehehe
I decided to experiment a take it out of the jar and blend it in my food processor and it actually worked well. It came out very creamy and poured right back into the jar. Clean up was a slight pain, but I think I spent less time this way and got a better result than I do when I do it by hand.
Must have. Put on Amazon wishlist.
Now that we're happy with the consistency of our tahini, what are our favourite ways to use it? :> Other than in hummus, I mean. I make a kickass salad dressing with it, myself.
Wayneshep taught me to put miso and tahineh together in porridge. Obviously not sweetened. Delicious!!
Oh, oh, that reminds me - the best culinary thing I learned from my first partner, an Iranian fellow, was a mixture of tahini/tahineh (pronounced 'ta-heen-a') and date syrup, which we put in porridge. OMG so good. I wonder if I can find me some date syrup. It looked kind of like molasses.
I mix tahini with molasses and spread it on toast or pancakes. It would probably be good in porridge too, but I have yet to try it.
^ all these ideas sound bleh :P but you "foreigners" like your "weird" things :) like marmite on toast.... blech
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