Zucchini Umami Recipe

I love having homemade condiments that you can grab out of the fridge and put on top of your main dish or side dish. They’re those things that elevate a meal just that extra bit, personalizing it to your taste. Sometimes these extras are not just about flavor, but also nutrition. Enter “zucchini-umami”, a ground nut and seed mix that adds some zipidity doo dah to your meals. It’s got walnuts, sesame seeds and salt, but it’s not quite Japanese gomashio or Egyptian dukkah. It’s just something I whipped together from the ingredients in my kitchen.

Ingredients:

Note: It’s very important all these ingredients are fresh.

¼ c lightly toasted walnuts

1/8 c toasted sesame seeds

3 tbsp ground flax

2 tbs black sesame seeds

3 tbs kale chips

salt if needed, to taste

Instructions:

Put the kale chips and walnuts in a blender and blitz just until ground. Spoon into a medium sized bowl with the other ingredients and mix until evenly combined. Add salt to taste. You could make several versions of this with different spices and then have a little tray of condiments for your table to satisfy every picky eater in the family.  Today I sprinkled it over the egg salad I made which I ate with potato flatbread, aka lefse. I also added some radicchio thinnings for a bit of green garnish.

It’s best if this is stored in a jar in the fridge to keep the oily ingredients fresh. Why zucchini umami? Well, as my oldest friends know, my first performance persona was called “Zucchini Mama”, so it’s a play on that. You could put it on a zucchini dish or anything your like!