Normally Santanu has a tendency of encroaching cuisine area particularly on weekend or on his official holidays depending on his mood. In a way, it’s good as I get 2 days off.
We were just back from Switzerland and went for picnic at St.-Germain-en-Laye with few colleagues of Santanu. And Santanu promised he is going to prepare all by himself -simple vegetable-rice and Date walnut brownies.
Lately I borrowed one book on vegetarian by Nicolas Graimes from one friend which includes light meals, main courses, tarts, salads, desserts etc. The best part of this book is initial descriptions on each ingredients starting from seeds, vegetables, different types of cooking oil and what not with colourful pictures. We see certain things in the local market but do not how to prepare them. Neither we know the corresponding English names nor are they commonly available in India. So, its an excellent book for reference.
Last year he got ‘Pates de Dates’ from an Algerian store and it was sitting like a brick in our kitchen. Ever since, I got this book finding a recipe with ‘dates’ he had an eye on it.
Yum…………it came out good unexpectedly.The results are rewarding, here is a picture of fudgy moist and candy like brownies.
Best part is although I didn’t do anything except being a helping hand to Santanu but everyone complimented me for the same.
Even his friends from RFS wanted to have the recipe. These rich brownies are great for afternoon tea and even they do make a fantastic dessert when served with crème fraiche (whipped crème) or vanilla ice-cream. I will be infringing copyright if I copy those here but still couldn’t refrain myself.
** Ingredients**
350 gm plain dark chocolate
225gm or 1 cup butter
3 large eggs
115gm or ½ cup castor sugar
5ml vanilla essence
75gm sifted plain flour
225gm or ½ cup dates-peeled stoned and chopped
200gm or 1 ¾ cup walnut pieces
Icing sugar for dusting (optional)
** Procedure**
Melt chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pan of hot not boiling water until they have melted and smooth
In a separate bowl beat eggs, sugar and vanilla.
Add this into chocolate mixture and fold in flour, dates & nuts
Bake for 30-40 min in preheated oven at 190 C
Lastly, dust it with icing sugar.
Since they had to be chilled prior to cutting, I ate my brownie cold. Normally, I can’t resist myself from testing because of strong baking aroma. I think the fudginess was probably accentuated by chilling, so my sample was especially moist and chewy with a crumbly, crunchy top innards tempered by the occasional chunk of walnut.
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