Nigella Seed Oil

Nigella seed oil, widely sold as black seed oil, is pressed from the small black seeds of Nigella sativa, a flowering plant native to South Asia and the Mediterranean. The oil carries the same pungent, slightly bitter, oregano like flavor as the whole seed and is used in Middle Eastern, South Asian and North African cooking as a drizzling or finishing oil and folk remedy. Its principal active compound, thymoquinone, has made the oil a subject of considerable nutritional research, though its long culinary use in bread, pickles and savory dishes predates that research by centuries.