NEW YORK, June 17 — When chef Sameh Wadi was growing up — first in Kuwait, then in Jordan, and finally in Minneapolis and St. Paul — one of the few constants in his life was his mother’s cooking, especially the date-filled ring cookies called ka’ak that she made by hand and stockpiled during Ramadan.
Children do not fast during Ramadan, but adults like Wadi’s mother, Shahira, do not eat during daylight for the month. Traditionally, women spend much of their time cooking for the iftar, or fast-breaking meal, that is eaten every night after sunset.
“No question, those are my favourite things in the world to eat,” Wadi said. “I never realised as a kid how cruel it was to steal them, because even though she was fasting, she would still have to make more.”
During Ramadan, the far-flung Muslim communities of the world are unified by one food: the date, one of the earliest cultivated crops and an ancient icon of the Middle East, where the thick-trunked date palm is a symbol of hospitality, rest and peace.
In the hadith, a collection of sayings attributed to the prophet Mohammed, it is recorded that he always broke the fast with dates and water, so many Muslims are careful to follow, whether the fruit is called balah (Arabic), khajoor (Urdu), hurmah (Turkish) or buah tanggal (Indonesian).
In modern communities, restaurants offer iftar specials and buffets, and all-night food markets pop up to feed the hungry throngs. Dates are always available, out of respect for tradition and because they provide a quick boost of energy for the eating to come.
“An iftar without dates would feel very strange to all the Muslims I know,” said Yvonne Maffei, who writes a popular cooking and nutrition blog, My Halal Kitchen, from her home north of Chicago. “It would be like Thanksgiving without a turkey: The table doesn’t look right without it.”
This year, each day’s fast will be a particularly long one in much of the United States, from about 5am to 8:30pm, as Ramadan begins this evening. (Because the Islamic calendar is lunar, not solar, Ramadan takes place at different times during the Western year.)
Cooking for Ramadan seems like an oxymoron, but the two large meals of the night hours, the predawn suhoor and the sundown iftar, are opportunities for home cooks to come up with ever more alluring, filling and nourishing dishes.
“It sounds strange that Ramadan is a time for even thinking more about food,” said Razia Parvez, a homemaker in Boonton, New Jersey, who was born in Pakistan. “But cooking helps me get through the fast, because I can smell everything and imagine the tastes that I will be serving my family later.”
Muslims observing the fast try to eat extra dairy and protein at both meals to help stave off hunger the following day. Iftar invariably includes a bowl of dates, and sometimes more elaborate desserts, like pitted dates stuffed with nuts or labne (thick yogurt); ma’moul and ka’ak, round cookies filled with dates; and date paste rolled into cylinders or balls and coated with coconut.
The most elaborate desserts are saved for Eid al-Fitr, a great feast on the first night of the month that follows Ramadan, which this year falls on July 17. Shirin Farhat, an Iranian-American student in Los Angeles, said that her mother’s ranginak, a traditional Persian cake of dates cooked with cinnamon and cardamom and layered with walnuts, is the dish she looks forward to all year long.
“I just take a bite of a date to break the fast,” she said. “I save my appetite for ranginak.”
There are three basic types of dates: soft (including barhi, halawi, khadrawi and medjool), semi-dry (like the deglet noor and zahidi), and dry (like thoori), but thousands of variations are available around the world. Their flavours range from rich molasses to light butterscotch to honey, sometimes accented with the headiness of cognac, the succulence of prunes and the burnt-sugar edge of caramel.
They are mentioned often in the Quran, the Bible and ancient Sumerian and Assyrian texts. Like all palm trees, date palms belong in the same botanical family as grasses, not fruits; that’s why, nutritionally speaking, they have more in common with grains than with most fruits. Dates contain potassium, protein, iron and other minerals; they can last for years and thus have been staples of the diet of nomadic people all over the Middle East for centuries.
Date palms from the Middle East began arriving in the United States about 100 years ago, when the Department of Agriculture began its effort to transform the arid regions of the Southwest into fruitful fields.
Along with almonds, oranges, lemons and figs, dates are a drought-resistant crop that can flourish in desert conditions, and California’s Coachella Valley and the area around Yuma, Arizona, have proved ideal. (In that region, water for irrigation arrives via canals from the Colorado River, so the drought affecting Central and Northern California, which draw their water from the state’s northern mountain regions, is not as threatening.)
Robert Lower, the owner of Flying Disc Ranch in Thermal, California, has been growing dates and other fruits in the Coachella Valley since 1974.
“I was looking for something no one else was growing,” Lower said.
At the time, he said, the demand for dates had declined as other sources of sugar became plentiful. But over the years, with the growth of the Arab-American communities in Southern California and a rising awareness of the health benefits of dates, he began to sell all the dates he could grow.
More and more of Lower’s customers at farmers’ markets, he said, are asking for barhi dates, one of the few types that can be eaten in its yellow unripe stage (called khalal in Arabic; fully ripe, tree-dried dates are tamar, meaning sweet). Mourad Lahlou, the chef at Mourad in San Francisco, grew up in Morocco and deploys khalal dates in the kitchen whenever he can get them.
“When they are young, they are crunchy and only slightly sweet, with a hint of astringency,” he said, like a tart grape or crisp apple, making them great for balancing rich and savoury dishes.
But the khalal date season is very short: They are available from California and Arizona only for a few weeks of the year.
Lower uses traditional methods for hand-pollinating, pruning and ripening and has gradually developed an ecosystem on his ranch that’s almost identical to that of the desert oases of the ancient Middle East. His 450 date palms are planted in precisely measured rows: their huge spreading leaves form a canopy of shade that shelters the citrus, fig and pomegranate trees underneath.
Despite the rise in interest that Lower has seen, dates have never caught on as a fruit to eat out of hand in the United States. This may be because the type of date most commonly grown in the United States, the deglet noor, is better known for its hardiness than for its flavour.
Maffei of My Halal Kitchen, who was raised in a Catholic household in Ohio and converted to Islam in her 20s, grew up with dates at Christmas.
“You would always have them on the plate with the candied fruit and the red pistachios, and no one ever ate them,” Maffei said.
But, she said, when she began to observe Ramadan, her mind was changed by the rich flavour and plump texture of medjool dates. Her simple recipe for medjools drizzled with tangy crème fraîche is excellent for transforming date doubters into date lovers.
Deglet noors hold up well when cooked in chutneys, desserts or Moroccan tagines and pilafs, like the one Maffei makes with a whole roast chicken and fluffy couscous that absorbs the sweetness of dates and the butteriness of toasted almonds.
Although Wadi serves some of his mother’s recipes at his restaurant Saffron in Minneapolis (“I can’t bring myself to change them,” he said), he believes that many of the traditional ingredients of the Middle East are now ripe for reinvention. For example, dates would rarely be used in a savoury dish like his wheat berries with roasted carrots and spicy yogurt, a combination of yogurt and North African harissa that is itself rather revolutionary.
During Ramadan, many Muslim-Americans make a point of seeking out dates from their ancestors’ home countries: the red-brown zaghloul from Egypt, golden barhis from Iraq, orange-brown sair dates from Iran. Throughout the Muslim world, purple-black ajwa dates from Medina in Saudi Arabia, where the prophet lived and died, are considered the finest of all.
They hardly ever make it to the United States, but Wadi got his hands on some recently.
“I just sat down and ate them all,” he said. “Cooking an ajwa would be like deep-frying a black truffle.”
Dates With Cream and Chopped Pistachios
Adapted from Yvonne Maffei, My Halal Kitchen
Time: 20 minutes
Yield: 6 to 12 servings
12 large medjool dates
24 whole almonds (preferably blanched), walnuts or pecans
3 to 4 tablespoons crème fraîche
Freshly grated zest of 1 lemon or ½ orange (about 2 teaspoons)
1 tablespoon coarsely chopped pistachios
Method
1. Rinse and dry the dates. Make a clean cut along the side of each date to open, and remove the pit.
2. Stuff each date with two whole almonds and lightly pinch closed. (The recipe can be made up to this point up to two days in advance. Store in an airtight container.)
3. When ready to serve, arrange dates cut sides up on a plate or platter. Drizzle on the crème fraîche, making a dollop on each date. Sprinkle on the citrus zest, then the chopped pistachios. Serve immediately, as finger food or on plates with a small fork and knife.
Roast Chicken With Couscous, Dates and Buttered Almonds
Adapted from Yvonne Maffei, My Halal Kitchen
Time: 90 minutes
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground black pepper
Fine sea salt
1 large whole chicken, about 4 pounds
2 cups couscous (not instant)
3 tablespoons butter
½ cup sliced almonds
½ cup slivered dates
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons orange blossom water (optional)
2 tablespoons honey
Chopped mint, parsley or cilantro, or a combination, for garnish
Method
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees. In a large ovenproof dish or pot with a tight lid, combine 2 tablespoons olive oil, the lemon juice, the ginger, the pepper and 1 teaspoon salt. Add the chicken and rub it around in the mixture until evenly coated. Turn chicken breast side down and roast, uncovered, for 50 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, combine couscous, 2 cups water and ½ teaspoon salt. Set aside for five to 15 minutes to soak.
3. In a small skillet, melt the butter. Add almonds and cook, stirring constantly, just until toasted and golden; adjust heat so almonds and butter do not scorch. Turn off heat and stir in dates.
4. Add almond-date mixture to couscous, along with any butter left in pan, and mix, fluffing the grains with a fork. Mix in 2 tablespoons olive oil, the sugar, the cinnamon and the orange blossom water (if using).
5. Drizzle or paint honey over top of chicken (leave chicken breast-side down in pot). Add couscous mixture to the pot, arranging it around the chicken. Cover tightly with a lid or foil and return to the oven for 30 minutes more.
6. Remove from the oven. When cool enough to handle, remove chicken and carve into serving pieces. Stir and fluff couscous, scraping up any chicken skin stuck to bottom of pan, and place chicken pieces back on top of couscous. Sprinkle with chopped herbs and serve immediately.
Wheat Berries With Roasted Carrots, Harissa Yogurt and Dates
Adapted from The New Mediterranean Table by Sameh Wadi
Time: 1 hour
Yield: 4 to 6 servings
For the Wheat Berries:
2 cups wheat berries, freekeh (see note), or farro, washed and soaked in water for 10 minutes
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cups vegetable stock, chicken stock or lightly salted water, plus extra as needed
For the Carrots:
10 to 12 carrots, preferably mixed colors, scrubbed and cut in half lengthwise (if possible, leave some of the green tops intact)
Grapeseed or canola oil
Salt
To Finish:
¾ cup plain Greek yogurt
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons harissa, more to taste
6 pitted medjool dates, cut into slivers
A handful of small mint leaves, for garnish
A handful of small dill sprigs, for garnish
Extra-virgin olive oil, for garnish
Method
1. Cook the wheat berries: In a colander, drain the soaked grains and shake dry. In a medium saucepan with a tight lid, heat the olive oil. Add the grains and cook over moderately high heat, stirring continuously until dry and sizzling, about one minute.
2. Add stock and bring to a simmer. Simmer, uncovered, until the liquid just reaches the top level of the grains, about eight to 10 minutes. Reduce heat to very low, cover and continue to cook until liquid is absorbed and grains are cooked through, 10 to 20 minutes. (Start tasting after 10 minutes; grains should be just tender at the heart. Add more liquid 2 tablespoons at a time if the pan becomes dry.) Turn off heat and set aside, covered, 15 to 30 minutes, to steam.
3. Cook the carrots: Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spread out the carrots in one layer on a baking sheet, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt and toss to coat. Roast until brown around the edges and tender all the way through, 15 to 20 minutes.
4. To finish: In a small bowl, combine yogurt, lemon juice and harissa and whisk until combined. Taste and adjust seasonings with harissa and salt. The consistency should be thick but pourable; add more lemon juice or water as needed.
5. When ready to serve, fluff the grains with a fork. Spoon onto a serving platter or wide shallow bowl; arrange the carrots in a circle on top, then sprinkle with dates. Drizzle yogurt over top and garnish with mint, dill and a drizzle of olive oil. Serve hot, warm or at room temperature.
* Note: Freekeh, a Middle Eastern staple, are wheat berries that are harvested when green, then roasted and cracked. The smoky flavour is distinctive and delicious, but you can use regular wheat berries or farro and cook them in the same way. Or, you can cook any of these grains like pasta, in abundant salted boiling water. Drain, shake dry and mix with olive oil. — New York Times
