Kimia dates - best dates in the world

here are dates, nice dates and then there are great dates. At the lower side of the spectrum are those dry, unexciting dates from your local grocer or supermarket. Then there are dates with someone cute, kind and funny, who makes your heart skip a beat. And then there are Kimia dates: fragrant like wine, lusciously sweet, soft like set honey. As a lot of great food (and good people), they hail from a country from the US Axis of Evil, Iran. And truely so, Iranian gastronomy does sound like something favoured by very wicked folks: rose petal tea, chicken stewed in pomegranate molasses, saffron rice and black caviar. Yes, and Kimia dates for the dessert.

Saffron rice.. wthout saffron

ave you ever been frustrated with saffron like I am? The pesky bugger may give that sought-after flavour to your Persian rice, yet it is so finicky in handling. It is never really enough to offer an ample, full-bodied flavour, it needs to be pre-chopped and pre-soaked before you even dare to use it, then the flavour so easily escapes when cooking, and to boot it does not even colour the rice uniformly, leaving it instead tantalisingly spotted here and there. 

Luckily, by pure chance, I have discovered a mighty alternative to it, giving everything we have been begging saffron to deliver for so long, as of yet to no avail. Ta-dam, here enters the perfect couple: dry dill and turmeric powder. By some strange twist of fate, when paired together, they produce the flavour identical to saffron, at a fraction of the cost and effort, The colour too, albeit lacking saffron's reddish notes, with the addition of dill's dark green acquires a depth, elegantly finishing off with the golden brown of the tahdeg (caramelised crust). 

I also truncate the elaborate Persian procedure in favour of the more  straightforward, yet nonetheless effective Asian steaming method. Few more tricks that make this saffronless saffron rice a hit with my discerning guests.

• Add butter generously. I use about 70 g for 11 handfuls of dry rice. Butter is good for you: French people eat a lot of it and don't get fat. Junk food, snacking and eating on the run  - that's what makes you fat, not butter.
  
• Add a dash of sea salt. Without salt, your rice will come out bland and boring. I use fish sauce because it gives an additional level of depth to the flavour, thanks to the naturally occurring MSG, which is not bad for you.
  
• When the rice has been brought to a boil, stir it up to make sure that the dill is evenly spread. Very important: do that while the water has not yet been completely absorbed into the rice. Thus you will ensure that the rice does not turn into a solid slab, allowing for passages for the steam to travel through it, which is how the whole shebang actually gets cooked.
  
  
• Once ready, fluff up the rice. At the bottom, you will find a deliciously caramelised crust, tahdeg. Serve it separately, it tastes like savoury cake. Don't drag our feet though: it's only good while it's warm. To make your rice fit for a celebration table, the Nowruz only being a couple of months away, mix in some finely sliced dried apricots or sultanas as well as pistachio or almond flakes.

Kufteh: spicy Iranian meatballs recipe (کوفته )

oftas are a common dish throughout the Middle East and South Asia. The Arabic word for this dish is kafta' but I prefer to use the Persian kufteh (کوفته ), because I buy spices for mine in an Iranian shop. It is their flavour that makes all the difference in this balls of mince, rice and onions.

The recipe is simple, although, like in many Iranian dishes, time-consuming. To mae it worth my while, I cook a huge Creuset pot at a time and freeze leftovers to have for lunch when I start missing the taste.

1. Cook three cups of rice in two cups of water. The proportions may vary depending on the type of rice you use and also on the humidity/altitude of your place of domicile. The rule of thumb is that rice needs to come out on the dry side, so use about 2/3 of the amount of water that you would normally use.
2. While the rice is cooling down, peel and finely chop 6 large onions.
3. Mix 500 g (just over a pound) Tartare beef mince with the onions and rice. Add 2 beaten eggs, salt and spices. The choice of spices is really up to you: zaatar goes very well with this recipe
4. 
   

Gol gavzaban: borage flowers tea (گل گاوزبان)

Now this is a nicely odd tea: gentle blue and tasting like cucumbers. Gol gavzaban or borage is mostly used as a savoury herb in the South of France. Iranians, an ancient and sophisticated nation that they are, pick just the flowers and make tea out of them. They claim it has health benefits but I think they drink mostly because it is so bizarre and when you have a few millennia of tea-drinking behind you, you need something like this to get past your excitement threshold and get the kick.

Persian delight: rose petal tea (چای گلبرگ رز)

here are very few people who don't enjoy the scent of dry rose petal potpourri, even if secretly. Iranians, a nation so old that they used to go to war with Ancient Greece, make a gently scented tea out of it. It is no wonder, as they are also credited with giving the world the garden rose as we know it.

I discovered rose petal tea (چای گلبرگ رز) in my neighbourhood Persian shop. I love to drop by there and get light-headed from the overpowering aromas of spices. On that day I was cycling by, when I saw shelves with marked down products standing outside. The Dutch in me couldn't resist that.

When I was a kid, we had rose petal jam from Moldavia. That is why when I saw a bag with "rose petal tea" written on it, the idea of roses as food didn't strike me as outlandish.

Websites selling alternative medicines claim that rose petal tea cures about anything from sweaty feet to adult attention deficiency syndrome. I don't know if it is true or not, I simply enjoy its soothing effect and how well it goes with Middle Eastern sweets.