Hais

Name: Hais
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 5 min
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Yield: 20
Cuisine: Saudi Arabia
Ingredients: 400 g soft dates (Ajwa, Khalas or Medjool), stoned; 100 g dry breadcrumbs or barley flour, toasted; 50 g dried curd (aqit), finely ground, or full-fat milk powder; 80 g clarified butter or ghee, melted; 60 g blanched almonds, chopped; 1 tsp ground cardamom; 0.25 tsp ground cinnamon; 0.25 tsp fine salt; 3 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted, for rolling; 2 tbsp desiccated coconut or ground pistachio, for rolling

The date paste of the early Arabian caravans, dates worked with clarified butter, toasted crumbs, and dried curd, rolled into balls and kept for the road

Origin: Medina and the Hejaz, Saudi Arabia

From the journey of Date.

Hais is one of the oldest named dishes in Arabic, and it survives because it solved a specific problem completely. Three things keep indefinitely in a desert: dates, clarified butter, and aqit, the hard dried curd made by drying salted yoghurt until it is stone. Worked together they give a food that carries sugar, fat, and protein in a single dense ball, needs no cooking, and will not spoil on a month's journey. It was the ration of travellers, of pilgrims, and of armies in the first Islamic centuries, and it appears in the Abbasid cookery books and in the hadith literature alike. It is made in the Hejaz, where the palm oases of Medina and Khaybar have been date country since long before Islam. Medina's own Ajwa, small, nearly black, and soft, is the most storied date in the world: a widely transmitted saying commends it particularly, and it is priced accordingly. The habit of breaking the Ramadan fast on dates and water, following the Prophet's practice, is what gave the fruit its fixed annual appointment in every Muslim kitchen from Morocco to Java, and it is the single reason a desert crop is eaten by people who have never seen a palm. The dish belongs to a family that runs the whole length of Arabia and a good deal further back. The Gulf's mafrookah pounds dates with pistachios and butter; the Old Babylonian mersu, recorded on cuneiform tablets nearly four thousand years ago, pounded dates with pistachios and butter as well. The names change; the operation does not. In Saudi and Emirati households it is still made, usually for Ramadan, and it is served with cardamom coffee, which in Arabia is never served without dates in some form beside it.

Ingredients

Fruit

400 g soft dates (Ajwa, Khalas or Medjool), stoned

Binding

100 g dry breadcrumbs or barley flour, toasted
50 g dried curd (aqit), finely ground, or full-fat milk powder

Fat

80 g clarified butter or ghee, melted

Nuts

60 g blanched almonds, chopped

Spices

1 tsp ground cardamom
0.25 tsp ground cinnamon

Seasoning

0.25 tsp fine salt

To finish

3 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted, for rolling
2 tbsp desiccated coconut or ground pistachio, for rolling

Method

Toast the breadcrumbs or barley flour in a dry pan over a medium heat for four to five minutes, stirring, until they smell of biscuit and have coloured lightly. Tip out and cool.
Toast the chopped almonds in the same pan for two minutes and set aside.
If the dates are firm, steam them for five minutes. Pound or blitz them to a coarse paste with the cardamom, cinnamon, and salt.
Work in the melted clarified butter a little at a time, then the ground dried curd or milk powder, then the toasted crumbs and the almonds. Knead the mixture with your hands until it is uniform and holds firmly when squeezed.
If the mixture is too soft to roll, add another spoonful of toasted crumbs; if it is crumbly, another teaspoon of melted butter.
Roll into walnut-sized balls, then roll each in toasted sesame, coconut, or ground pistachio.
Chill for an hour to firm. Serve with cardamom coffee.

Notes

Aqit, the hard dried curd, is sold by Middle Eastern grocers and is what gives the authentic slight tang and savoury edge. Full-fat milk powder is a reasonable stand-in, and leaving it out entirely gives a sweeter, plainer sweet that is closer to the Gulf mafrookah. Ajwa dates from Medina are expensive and are usually eaten on their own rather than cooked. Khalas or Medjool is the sensible choice for making a batch. Some households add a spoonful of date syrup and a scrape of nutmeg. Neither is traditional in the earliest descriptions, which name only dates, fat, and curd. Clarified butter, not butter. Milk solids will turn rancid and the keeping quality that defines the dish depends on their absence.

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control