Sesame Oil

Let me tell you about sesame oil, and why the toasted kind should go into your dish at the end, not at the start, when the pan is still hot.

Sesame oil, the dark kind pressed from toasted seeds, is made mostly for finishing. The toasting is what gives it that deep, nutty smell — roast those seeds and the aroma wakes up, press them cold and you get something pale and milder, with a light sesame scent of its own. That's your test at the shelf: lift the bottle, sniff it, look at the colour. Dark and heavy-scented is the toasted kind, for finishing. Pale and gentle-scented is the light kind, genuine sesame oil too, just a different style, and it can take the heat of a pan.

Some people say sesame oil is just another cooking oil, to be poured generously into the wok like any other fat. No! At least not the toasted kind. One hundred grams gives you 884 kilocalories and all of it is fat — this is an oil used by the spoonful, stirred into noodles or drizzled over a salad once the heat is off, or added in small amounts partway through a stir-fry, never by the cupful from the start.

The mistake that comes from treating it carelessly is a ruined dish: too much heat, too soon, and that fragile roasted aroma burns away before the food even reaches the table.