If I had a restaurant, this dish would have been easily in the menu. It showcases perfectly the Greek food tradition and at the same time it has a strong character both as a look, as well as flavour.
Some time ago, I was browsing through a book with Greek recipes and came across one for a tahini soup, a very simple dish that due to its vegan nature, it’s traditionally prepared and eaten during fasting periods. Nowadays, it’s rather uncommon to find it and to be honest, I didn’t even know its existence before looking at it in the recipe book.
I love sesame and tahini and I thought to try to do it at home. At the same time, I felt combining it with something else and transform it into a dish that could stand by itself as the main course in a complete menu. That was when I thought of sepia and the possibility to use also its ink to colour the soup black. The combination worked out really good and here it is, Sesame and Sepia!
Sepia and black tahini soup
Tahini soup
tahini (look here how to do it easily at home)
lemon
carrot
onion
sepia ink
salt/pepper
sesame (for sprinkling at the end)
- Prepare a basic vegetable broth by boiling a big carrot and an onion in ca. 500 ml water, for 15-30 min. Blend the vegetables with a hand blender and keep the mix warm.
(These amounts can make easily two good portions).
- Place in a bowl two big spoons of tahini (per dish portion), add the juice of a lemon and mix using a whisker.
- Add in steps the warm broth and keep whisking until a homogenised mix is formed.
(If you want a thicker consistency in your soup, add some corn starch).
- Finally, add the sepia ink and blend with the hand blender to have it fully incorporated.
Sepia
sepia
extra virgin olive oil
salt/pepper
- Clean and wash the sepia, remove extra moisture with a kitchen paper, season both sides with salt and pepper and sauté for a half minute each side in a very hot pan with a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil.
- Serve the tahini soup with the sepia and sprinkle some sesame seeds on top.