Ingredient: Dates
Category: Dried Fruit
Season: All (Dry)
The Date Palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is a palm in the genus Phoenix, extensively cultivated for its edible fruit. Due to its long history of cultivation for fruit, its exact native distribution is unknown, but probably originated somewhere in the desert oases of northern Africa, and perhaps also southwest Asia.
The fruit is a drupe known as a date.
They are oval-cylindrical, 3–7 cm long, and 2–3 cm diameter, and when unripe, range from bright red to bright yellow in colour, depending on variety.
Dates contain a single seed about 2–2.5 cm long and 6–8 mm thick.
Three main cultivar groups of date exist; soft (e.g. 'Barhee', 'Halawy', 'Khadrawy', 'Medjool'), semi-dry (e.g. 'Dayri', 'Deglet Noor', 'Zahidi'), and dry (e.g. 'Thoory').
The type of fruit depends on the glucose, fructose and sucrose content.
Food uses
Medjool or Medjul
A particularly succulent variety carefully dried. It really is toffee sweet so if you are making cakes and biscuits with it you may find you need less sugar.
Dry or soft dates
Are eaten out-of-hand, or may be pitted and stuffed with fillings such as almonds, walnuts, candied orange and lemon peel, marzipan or cream cheese.
Pitted dates are also referred to as stoned dates.
Dates can also be chopped
Then used in a range of sweet and savoury dishes, from tajines (tagines) in Morocco to puddings, bread, cakes and other dessert items.
Dates are also processed into:
Cubes, paste, spread, date syrup or "honey" called "dibs", powder (date sugar), vinegar or alcohol.
Recent innovations include:
Chocolate-covered dates and products such as sparkling date juice, used in some Islamic countries as a non-alcoholic version of champagne, for special occasions and religious times such as Ramadan.
Dates are also be dehydrated
Then ground and mixed with grain to form a nutritious stockfeed. Dried dates are fed to camels, horses and dogs in the Sahara.
In northern Nigeria
Dates and peppers added to the native beer are believed to make it less intoxicating.
Young date leaves are cooked and eaten as a vegetable, as is the terminal bud or heart, though its removal kills the palm.
The finely ground seeds are mixed with flour to make bread in times of scarcity.
The flowers of the date palm are also edible. Traditionally the female flowers are the most available for sale and weigh 300-400 grams.
The flower buds are used in salad or ground with dried fish to make a condiment for bread.
In India, North Africa, Ghana, and Côte d'Ivoire
Date palms are tapped for the sweet sap, which is converted into palm sugar (known as jaggery or gur), molasses or alcoholic beverages.
In North Africa
The sap obtained from tapping palm trees is known as lāgbī. If left for a sufficient period of time (typically hours-depending on the temperature) lāgbī easily becomes an alcoholic drink. Special skill is required when tapping the palm tree so that it does not die.
It is also used to make Jallab (a type of syrup popular in the Middle East and made from dates, grape molasses and rose water).
Once upon a time they were about as exotic as fruit could get.
Unless fresh dates are specified, most recipes use dried dates.
Fresh from October to February |