Sesame seed

Sesame seed is the flat teardrop seed of Sesamum indicum, an annual herb of the Pedaliaceae family cultivated in a belt from West Africa across India to southern China. The seed is tiny — a thousand weigh around three grams — and rich in oil at forty-five to sixty percent by mass, which is why it has been humanity's oldest deliberately pressed oilseed for more than five thousand years. Colour grades are functionally distinct in the kitchen: hulled white seed is the neutral bread-topping and tahini base; black seed (unhulled, a different cultivar) has a more mineral, almost charcoal-wood bitterness prized in Japanese gomashio and Korean kkae salt; unhulled brown or golden seed — the Ethiopian humera grade is the market benchmark — carries the strongest toasted nuttiness because the coat harbours most of the sesamin and sesamolin, two lignans that are potent antioxidants and stabilise the oil against rancidity. The aroma compounds that define toasted sesame — 2-furfurylthiol, guaiacol, 2-methoxy-3-isopropylpyrazine — form only above one hundred fifty degrees, which is why raw seed smells like faint hay and toasted seed smells like roasted popcorn and campfire. Canonical roles: Levantine tahini and halva, Japanese gomashio, Korean kkae-soguem, Levantine za'atar, Chinese sesame oil and sesame paste (zhima jiang), West African benne wafer, and American hamburger bun.