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