Dates in the pan: replacing fortified wine with local dates
When I first moved to Riyadh, I spent a lot of time looking for ingredients that tasted like home, and a lot of time learning how to adapt European recipes using what was actually in the local markets.
In French and Spanish kitchens, you learn to rely on sweet fortified wines — sherry, Madeira, port — to build depth in pan sauces and braises. They give you sugar, acid, and complexity in one splash.
In Saudi Arabia, you have dates.
Dates are not just sweet. They are rich in tannins, dark stone-fruit flavours, and caramel notes. If you treat them like sugar, they are cloying. But if you treat them like a wine reduction, they do something incredible.
Here is how I use them.
I make a date reduction to deglaze. I simmer dried Khalas dates in water with a splash of vinegar — usually apple cider or red wine vinegar — and a bruised black cardamom pod. The vinegar cuts the heavy sweetness; the cardamom adds the woodsmoke. Once the dates are soft, I blend and strain them.
You get a thick, dark, sweet-sour syrup. It looks like aged balsamic, but behaves like a demi-glace reduction.
When you sear lamb chops or beef rump, you pull the meat to rest. Turn the heat down. Add a spoonful of the date reduction directly to the pan fat, followed by a splash of stock. Swirl it. The sugars in the dates emulsify with the fat and stock, creating a glossy, deep brown sauce in thirty seconds. No flour, no starch.
It tastes like it took three hours. It takes two minutes.
Cooking in a different country isn't about importing your old kitchen. It’s about finding the local ingredient that does the same job, better.
