Instructions

1. Make the wasabi paste first and then leave it alone for ten minutes. Wasabi heat is created when the powder meets water and needs that rest to develop; mixed straight into the dough it tastes of dust.
2. Combine the hazelnut meal, toasted sesame, black sesame and chia and stir until the black seeds are scattered evenly. They are the visual signature of this cracker and clumps of them read as a mistake.
3. Whisk the wasabi paste, water, soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil and toasted sesame oil until the mixture emulsifies. Oil and soy separate on standing, and dough made from a separated mixture has salty patches and greasy ones.
4. Pour the wet into the dry and work it until it holds together, then let it sit before you judge it. Chia keeps thickening for several minutes and a dough that seems too wet now usually is not.
5. Scoop balls onto mesh sheets and flatten each one into an even round with damp fingers. A domed cracker is thick through the middle, and the middle is what stays soft.
6. Dry at 43 °C for 9 hours. This is the lowest setting in this section of the catalogue for a reason: the wasabi heat is volatile, and a hot run leaves you with a plain sesame cracker.
7. They are ready when a cooled cracker snaps in half with a clean edge and no darker band through the break. Hazelnut meal is oily enough to keep them feeling soft on the tray, so always test one that has been off it for a minute.
8. Stack the cold crackers in a tin with the lid tight for a fortnight, or the fridge for another month. Nut meal and sesame are both oily, so what ends these is the oil turning rather than the crackers going soft.