10 recipes that use dates, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Cauliflower and dates salad, takes 25 minutes. It is most often cooked with butter, milk and pistachios.
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Raw cauliflower florets marinated in a little oil and vinegar, then mixed with sweet dates, banana, crisp red apples and celery on crunchy salad leaves. It is served with a creamy orange and mustard yogurt dressing. The mix of sweet, crunchy and tangy makes it a refreshing side for a summer lunch.
The sweet, sour, glossy brown chutney that makes chaat: tamarind and dates boiled soft, blended and sieved, then sweetened with jaggery and spiced with cumin and red chilli. Drizzle it over samosas, bhel, pani puri, dahi vada and pakoras. It keeps for a month in the fridge or longer in the freezer.
Wholesome, lightly sweet biscuits with wheat bran flakes, wholewheat flour and chopped dates, warmed with nutmeg. A good mid-morning snack.
Wholemeal pastry sweetened only with honey, sandwiching a thick filling of dates, lemon and mixed nuts. Glazed with milk and sprinkled with sugar, it is like a home-made fig roll in slice form.
A quick, rich sweet of dates melted down in butter, then mixed with milk chocolate, chopped nuts, coconut and rice krispies and pressed into a tray. It's chewy, chocolatey and crisp. Makes about 30 diamonds; keep them in the fridge and serve cold.
Katlo pak is a traditional Gujarati winter sweet, eaten for strength and warmth: wheat flour and oats roasted in ghee with fried edible gum, coconut, nuts and a warming blend of katlo, dill, aniseed, fenugreek, ginger and spices, set with a dark jaggery 'pie'. It's crumbly, rich and spicy-sweet. Makes about 50 pieces; eat one a day in the cold months.
A modern layered barfi: a chewy base of dates, coconut, cornflakes, chocolate cereal and pistachio, a creamy top of condensed milk, cashews and almonds, and a marbled dark and white chocolate finish. It's rich, crunchy and silky all at once. Makes 35–40 rectangles; great for parties and gift boxes.
A soft, moist cake made without eggs: self-raising flour and brown sugar are rubbed with butter, then mixed with milk and sour cream and studded with chopped dates, raisins and pistachios, with a warm hint of nutmeg and vanilla. Lovely with tea or served warm with cream.
Crumbly, buttery biscuit dough is rolled out, spread with a soft date filling flavoured with cinnamon and lemon, rolled into logs, sliced and baked into pretty pinwheels. They make a big batch of 50 and keep well in an airtight tin. Serve with tea, or with ice cream as a dessert.
Ma'amoul are delicate shortbread-like pastries made for Eid and Easter across the Middle East. A soft, rose-scented butter dough is wrapped around a filling of dates, walnuts, almonds and pistachios cooked with cinnamon, marked with a fork, baked pale and dusted with icing sugar. Makes 35; they keep well in a tin.
