Multilayer date tart (Ranginak)

This is a popular dish from southern part of the Iran where date trees are in exuberance and is usually eaten with a hot cup of tea. What got me interested in the recipe was the familiarity with the ingredients and yet novelty in the way they are combined. Each ingredient in the every layer of this dessert is my all time favorite including dates, walnuts, wheat flour roasted in ghee, pistachio and cardamom powder. Naturally,  I couldn't resist this super high calorie dessert.  Very little use of sugar and natural sweetening with dates gives it a character especially in comparison to my favorite aata ke ladoo where we add a lot of sugar to ghee and aata mixture. It is a no bake tart/dessert however a baked version do exits for this dessert. Also, it reminds me of date crumble or aata/date shortbread and even classic aata ke  laddo.

I am paying some attention to dates these days at the local farmer's market. One of the farmers only brings dates of 5-6 different varieties and is among one of the most popular vendors. My favorite are majool dates (soft and chewy), then there are Bahri (eaten during Ramadan as told by the farmer, also soft and smaller than majool, people in middle east eat them with tea as a sugar substitute)  Farmers also have 2-3 other varieties which are relatively dry and perhaps could be used for chutney/baking.  Soft and fresh dates are recommended for making this dessert. Many variations exist for this dessert, some of which I will discuss at the end of the recipe.

This recipe was adapted from  Food of life ancient Persian and modern Irani cooking and ceremonies by Najmeih Batmangij.   In addition to small changes in the quantities of ingredients, I substituted ghee for butter and wheat flour for all purpose flour as I knew I would like this taste better and I remember reading it somewhere else that it used to be made with wheat flour also. This is the first recipe that I am trying from this book. It is one of my favorite cookbooks these days and I eagerly wait for trying new recipes from this book. Since Persian cuisine had so much influence on Indian cuisine, many recipes sound familiar yet they are so different in the preparation. 

Ingredients:

Layer1:

3 cups of pitted dates (preferably soft and fresh, Bahri or majool)

1 cup roasted walnuts (chopped into small pieces)

Layer 2:

1 cup ghee (clarified butter)

1 and 1/2  cup wheat flour (shifted)

Layer 3:

1/2 cup confectioners sugar (shifted)

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Layer 4:

Garnishing

3/4 cup pistachio (ground)

Procedure:

1.  Lightly toast raw walnuts for about 5 minutes on a skillet on medium heat.
2. Chop them or grind them into big pieces for stuffing in dates after cooling them for little bit.
3. In a thick bottom pan, mix the ghee and wheat flour on low-medium heat and cook the mixture. It took about 40 minutes for me to cook it. (Since there is enough ghee in the mixture, it was sufficient to mix it every couple of minutes to avoid sticking at the bottom. Original recipe called for cooking it on medium heat for 15-20 minutes. I usually like things on slightly more cooked side especially halwa and ladoo so decided to toast it for 40 minutes. Make sure that you don't burn this. When you start smelling beautiful aroma of ghee flour mixture you will know that its ready and also it will change color similar to caramel sauce or little darker than that)
4. Slit one side of date (remove the pit) and stuff with chopped walnuts
5. Grease a 9.5 inch tart pan or a 9 inch pie pan and arrange stuffed walnuts from inside to outside covering maximum space on the pan
6. Once your ghee flour mixture is ready, evenly pour it over the dates and cover them completely. Level it to make a even surface
7. Now mix confectioners sugar with cardamom powder and cinnamon powder and evenly sprinkle over the flour mixture and tap it little bit from the back of a spoon. Soon this will be submerged into the flour mixture and you won't see sugar as prominently
8. Now ground some pistachio and distribute those evenly over the sugar mixture 
9. Let it cool for an hour (put it in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours) and then cut a small triangular piece and warm it slightly for 30 seconds in microwave. Enjoy with hot tea (Note that it will be little soft and crumbly before putting it in the refrigerator so be careful in taking out the pieces if you do not want to put it in the refrigerator . If you do put it in the refrigerator, make sure to microwave it to heat up the flour ghee mixture a bit)

 Variations:

*  You could also just put the flour ghee sugar mixture in the pan and arrange the date (stuffed or without stuffed) on the mixture

** You could put half of the flour mixture at the bottom, sprinkle sugar mixture, arrange the dates and put remaining half of the mixture on the top and use your own artistic idea for garnishing

*** You could just serve the stuffed dates with little sprinkle of pistachios or even add feta cheese or a savory/sweet combination for stuffing to make your own date delights

Persian Almond Baklava

Out of millions of recipes that are floating on the Internet, its always tough to select the ones which I want to try in my kitchen. Since it is a significant time investment to try a new recipe (and a depressing state if it doesn't come out well), I have created a safe zone for myself i.e. try recipes, which have won some sort of award. One website that I frequently visit is FOOD52 as it announces contest winners and wild card winners in different categories each week. I have a good number of recipes on "to be tried list" from their contests. One of them was almond baklava, which I made this weekend. I am proud to say that this is one of the prettiest desserts I have ever baked (not that I have baked a lot) and it also tastes pretty good. This blog entry is inspired by the “almond baklava wild card entry winner” in food52 contest.

Ingredients:

Crust:

1+1/8 cup all purpose flour

8 tablespoon (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/8 cup very cold water

Filling:

3 cups almond meal/flour (blanched)

1 cup powdered confectioners sugar (shifted)

1 teaspoon cardamom powder

2 tablespoon water

1/2 tablespoon rose water

Glazing:

2 tablespoon water

1/2 teaspoon flour

Syrup topping:

1/2 cup sugar

3/8 cup water

1 tablespoon rose water

Final decoration:

1.5 tablespoon pistachios (chopped)

2 teaspoon dried rose petals (available at Persian grocery stores)

Procedure:

1. Cut butter into eight equal pieces. Add that to the flour and mix them together (either with hand or stand mixer) until the combination is crumbly and pea size pieces are formed. Now drizzle water to this and knead the dough to bring everything together and wrap this in a plastic and refrigerate for 30 minutes

2. Now in a bowl (or in stand mixer), add almond meal, confectioner sugar (shifted), cardamom powder and mix slightly. Mix rose water and water separately. Then drizzle water/rose water mixture to the almond mixture so that the mixture is moist (don't over mix otherwise almonds may leave butter)

3. Now take a 9x9 size pan and apply little oil on the inside.

4. Divide the dough into two equal parts and roll the first part into a 9x9 inch size (I flipped my pan and then used the plastic to cover it and then rolled the dough on the back of the pan to basically get the 9x9 shape without having to cut any thing. You can also roll it on kitchen slab and then fit it into the pan. Also, I find it helpful to roll with the large rolling pins for even rolling without any mess)

5. Now cut a parchment paper and transfer the rolled part on it and cut it to fit the size of the dough (9x9 inch)

6. Now roll the second part of the dough in a similar fashion and remove it from the pan along with the plastic

7. Flip the pan and transfer parchment paper with the dough into it (if some sides of the dough are smaller than the pan, work with you hands to stretch the dough to fit the whole pan)

8. Transfer the filling on the dough and press it to make an even surface

9. Now transfer the second part of rolled dough on top of the filling (of course without the plastic:)

10. Now transfer the pan into freezer for 20 minutes (this helps in not crumpling the top part while baking)

11. Preheat oven to 350 F

 12. Take out the pain from freezer and cut the dough into 8 equal parallel parts horizontally and then cut at 45 degree angles in eight equal parts to get the diagonal shape. Make sure to cut it all the way to the bottom

13. Mix 2 tablespoon water and 1/2 teaspoon of flour. Heat it in microwave for 20 seconds. Mix again and heat for 20 seconds.

14. Now using a brush, glaze/coat the top part with the water/flour mixer. This will give the baklava a nice golden finish

15. Transfer the pan into oven and bake for 15 minutes

16. Take the pan out from the oven and run the knife through all the cuts because some of them may have diffused into each other

17. Transfer the pan back to oven and bake for 20 minutes

18. Increase the temperature to 375F and bake for another 10 minutes (until crust turns golden)

19. When you increase the temperature to 375 F, start preparing the syrup. 

20. Heat the sugar and water into a pan until the sugar is melted and bring to a low boil

21. Add rose water and let the mixture boil

22. Once its starts to boil, switch off the gas and let it cool down a bit (still warm)

23. Take out the pan from oven and let it cool to that its warm (~10 minutes)

24. Now pour the warm syrup evenly through the pan

25. Sprinkle chopped pistachio and rose leaves on the pan for decorations 

26.Cover it with plastic wrap once the pan has cooled completely and let it  rest for at least 2 hours. The taste will improve in day so you can even make it ahead of time.