Date Rolls
Yuma Quartermaster Depot, $3.50 /.5lb
For a cold: hot soup. For a hangover: bloody mary mix. For when a sudden shift to a hot dry climate leaves you feeling like a wrung-out rag: gallons of water and a pack of date rolls. Available from the Yuma Visitor Information Center's fridge, each energy-packed log is made from fresh dates pureed into a smooth, creamy fondant, then rolled in either shredded coconut or chopped nuts.
Yuma Quartermaster Depot Visitor Information Center
201 N 4th Ave
Yuma AZ
928 / 783-0071
4 comments:
Dates are so delicious! The Chinese have an interesting snack/dessert where they stuff jujubes with glutinous rice dough. If you want to sweeten things up you can add some osmanthus syrup. Simple but so unbearably good.
Seriously, dates are amazing!! To think I wasted so many years being put off by their stickiness and weird skin. Do you have a recipe for this Chinese dessert or is it just this simple? And any recommendation for where to buy osmanthus syrup? I think it's the same as cassia jam, which I've seen in Seattle stores looking alarmingly like jars full of rust.
The recipe IS that simple XD Just buy some large Chinese red dates, slit them (don't cut them through though) and remove the pits but not the skin. For the filling, just mix a little bit of water with glutinous rice flour to form a stiff dough, not unlike dango dough. Just stuff the dates with the delicious mixture- you don't even have to add sugar since the dates are going to impart their natural sweetness to the stuffing. Just steam them for around 5-10 minutes, preferably in a bamboo steamer since it’ll add considerable fragrance to the darlings. Osmanthus syrup is nothing like jam in my opinion- you can add some dried osmanthus flowers (I think about 2 teaspoons are enough) to boiling rock sugar syrup. Personally I tend to skip this as it kinda ruins the delicate flavours of the dates and the bamboo. Surprisingly they taste even better if you let them cool down first, but I usually can’t wait and eat a couple fresh off the stove. The soft-chewy insides contrast beautifully with the slightly tough but yielding skin.
oh stupid me, I checked what cassia jam is- you are totally right, it is very close to osmanthus syrup. How strange- I thought cassia and osmanthus were two entirely different flowers...
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