Black sesame oil (黑麻油): the signature confinement fat

More than any other single ingredient, black sesame oil is what makes a dish taste like confinement food. In Taiwanese practice especially, the smell of ginger frying in black sesame oil is the smell of the month. Get this one ingredient right and half the confinement kitchen opens up.

Why this oil

Black sesame oil is pressed from toasted black sesame seeds, and in TCM it is classed as warm and nourishing, associated with the liver, kidneys and blood, the same reserves the month sets out to rebuild. The tradition treats it as something close to a remedy as much as a cooking fat, which is why confinement dishes use it generously where ordinary cooking would use a neutral oil.

Its partner is almost always ginger. The two are fried together at the start of a dish, and that pairing, warming oil and warming ginger, is the flavour base of the confinement classics.

Not the pale kind

The single most common mistake is reaching for the wrong oil. The pale toasted sesame oil most kitchens have is a finishing seasoning, used a few drops at a time. Black sesame oil is darker, thicker, more intense, and in confinement cooking it is a primary cooking fat. They are not interchangeable, and a dish built on the pale kind, or on a blend cut with soybean oil, will not taste right.

Buy pure toasted black sesame oil from an Asian grocer. Kadoya and Lee Kum Kee are dependable; check the label lists only sesame.

Respect the heat

The one technical thing to know is that black sesame oil has a low smoke point and turns bitter if it gets too hot, and that bitterness is unrecoverable. Cook it at medium heat, add it to a warm pan rather than a blazing one, and if it starts to smoke, discard it and start again. Many recipes also finish with a fresh spoon of raw oil off the heat, to keep its aroma bright.

Black sesame oil is the backbone of sesame oil chicken and ginger and sesame minced pork. For the warmth logic behind it, see should I avoid cold food and cold drinks.