Clare Teal: Dukkah might look like sawdust but it is delicious

In case you’ve yet to try it Dukkah is a delicious aromatic mix of nuts and seeds.

Dukkah is Arabic for ‘to pound’ which makes sense when you read the next bit.

To relive the memory we decided to make a batch of our own, combining recipes we found online.

Spread 1/3 cup of unsalted pistachio nuts and 1/3 cup hazelnuts onto a baking tray and shove into a preheated medium oven for about 10 minutes or until nicely toasted (not burnt).

When they’ve cooled give the hazelnuts a good rub with a clean tea towel or kitchen roll to remove all the skins and blitz them in a food processor until roughly chopped.

Now heat a frying pan on a medium heat, add half a cup of sesame seeds and dry fry till golden.

Put them to one side with the crumbled pistachios and hazelnuts.

In the now empty hot pan put two table spoons of coriander seeds and two tablespoons of cumin seeds and cook for a couple of minutes till the wonderful aromatics waft up your nostrils or till you hear the seeds pop.

Pound them together in a pestle and mortar then add to the nuts and sesame seeds and season to taste with loads of black pepper and flaked sea salt.

It didn’t look like much so we decided to double the amounts.

All went to plan until the salting stage, even though we put less than the suggested amount, it was far too salty for our delicate palettes, so we then had to make a third batch to even out the salt.

We now have more Dukkah than we know what to do with, but have found it to be incredibly versatile and long lasting.

Eat it with bread and oil, sprinkled on the top of baked Camembert, with eggs, or thrown onto fried chicken with a bit of pesto and we still have a small barrel left to experiment further!

Found out what Clare Teal is up to at www.clareteal.co.uk or follow her on Twitter @clareteal