There are very few sauces which are black-colored. Squid ink is one of the few well known ones. Japanese black sesame sauce (goma-ae) should be another; its shiny black color is mysterious and dramatic. Since the sauce is nutty and slightly sweet, it complements many types of blanched or cooked vegetables such as: fava beans, green peas, spinach (shown above), broccoli, broiled and peeled eggplant, edamame, and string beans. This sauce is made from just a few ingredients: raw (untoasted) black sesame seeds, soy sauce, sugar, and dashi. The first step is to toast and then grind the sesame seeds. The recipe starts with raw sesame seeds because once they are toasted, the oil can quickly become rancid. Raw sesame seeds stay fresh for much longer, so sesame seeds should be bought raw and toasted as needed. Japanese cooking almost always uses unhulled sesame seeds; thus tahini can’t be substituted for the sesame seed paste made by this recipe since it is made from hulled sesame seeds. The hulls give the sesame paste a coarser texture, a richer flavor, and a darker …