Egusi and Wattle (and Caraway, Poppy and Sesame) Seeds

Mimi has multiple seeds listed in her 1000 Foods-some are more commonly known like Caraway seeds found in Scandinavian cooking, Eastern European Poppy Seeds and African Sesame Seeds. Two others are not nearly as well known (if known at all): Egusi & Wattle.

Caraway, Sesame & Poppy Seeds: These three are well known and found in may types of cooking. I agree with Mimi that the world needs all three.

Egusi Seeds come Nigeria and grown in a fruit that looks like a melon. The only parts of the Eugusi that is eaten are the seeds.  They are ground to add thickness and flavor to soups and are also eaten just like you would peanuts or pumpkin seeds.  To one of my Sunday brewery get-togethers with friends, I fried in oil and lightly salted a bag of Egusi seeds.  They went fast so if you plan to cook these for friends, you might considering purchasing more than one bag…

Wattle seeds are an Australian outback specialty and used in traditional aboriginal cooking.  I am going to add a number of aboriginal postings but for now, you get wattle seeds. Wattle tastes a bit like chocolate but with a wilder, almost burnt flavor. I took a Spruce Eats cinnamon scone recipe and substituted wattle seed for cinnamon for part of the batch and cinnamon for the other half. Elena and I both agree, the wattle is better than the cinnamon. Wattle seed is a bit harder to find than cinnamon, but once again, Amazon.com has you on this one.

Want to learn about more seeds? Healthista has a listing of 13 Healthy seeds that can be used in cooking. Shape has 10 ways to cook with seeds. Cooking Light has 7 Healthy and Delicious Seeds to use in cooking.