You have those days where you need a little sweet or a bit of salty sweetness?  This my friends is the Roman equivalent of rocking your socks with this salty (or unsalted) goodness!

Stuffed Dates

Apicius 296

Translation:

A home made sweet: remove the pits from palmyra fruits or dates, and stuff them with walnuts or pine nuts or ground pepper.  Roll them in salt, fry in cooked honey and serve. (Herklotz, pp. 189)

Ingredients:

Fresh figs and/or dates  Walnuts halves  Pine nuts           Tsp salt

4 Tbs honey (or enough to coat depending on size of cooking batch)

Redaction:

I decided to try half of the cooked dates and figs with walnuts and the other half with pine nuts.

Next step was to take off the tops of the figs and pit the dates.

Then I wanted to try half of each type of stuffed fruit with salt and the other half with out salt.  i.e. I had 4 dates in total, 2 dates stuffed with walnuts and 2 stuffed with pine nuts, of these I rolled two in salt, one stuffed with walnuts and one stuffed with pine nuts.

After stuffing several pieces of the fruit were rolled in salt.

I heated up the 4Tbs of honey until thoroughly warmed and slightly boiling (or frying).  I then placed each stuffed piece of fruit in the honey.

I would suggest that the unsalted pieces be cooked first then the salted.  Once each piece was thoroughly coated I placed on a plate.  The salt did not stay very well through the cooking process, then again I only placed a light coating of salt on the fruit.  I might suggest sprinkling salt afterwards if the fruit appears to not have any or very little salt remaining.

I have to admit that the salted and unsalted date with walnut was my favorite.  The figs with walnuts were excellent as well though next time I would keep them in the honey a bit longer as the center was still a bit cool.  The pine nut stuffed fruit was a bit of a disappointment though it might have been because I did not stuff enough into the interior.

This is a quick simple very tasty dessert with or with out salt.