Date Pesto (v, gf)

A salty briny sweet condiment with many uses

We are currently in the process of moving out of our apartment of 8 years and into a house 100 miles north 🙀. Everything is chaos and I didn’t have time to write an essay this week (thanks to everyone who wrote back to the Kids Cooking post — I’ll try to get a zine together this winter!). So I’m sharing a recipe that would normally be just for paid subscribers. The recipes are usually more complex than this one, but if you dig it, consider becoming a paid subscriber:

I don’t know what to call this, because it has a lot of ingredients that are unusual for pesto, with the most unusual being dates. All I can say is that the heat drains my appetite (it’s 88°F in my kitchen before I turn on the stove) and I need something that’s easy, cool, and has a lot of flavor to tempt me into eating anything at all.

So this spread ticks all those boxes for me, with the salty briny sweetness just intense enough to make me interested. The flavor combination isn’t totally original — I’ve been making Joshua McFadden’s caper-raisin vinaigrette for years, and the Sicilian concept of agrodolce (sweet and sour) is kind of the same idea. Ali Slagle also shared a kale salad with dates and parmesan recently that has been kicking around in my brain.

It doesn’t take much work to put together this spread, but you can still save yourself effort by making it once and then throwing it into different dishes throughout the week. I’ve included some of my favorite ways: On bread with a little sharp cheese and tomato (for when I’m laziest), or in a simple arugula salad with crispy tofu. It would be great on a cheese board, and could also dress up a grain salad nicely.

Date Pesto

Yield: 1 cup chunky spread

Ingredients

• ¾ cup (110 grams) pine nuts*, toasted and cooled (if you can stand it)

• 1 bunch basil (60 grams after leaves picked from stems), washed and dried

• 6-8 (50 grams) Deglet dates, roughly chopped

• 1 tablespoon (15 grams) rinsed capers

• 1 teaspoon lemon juice (balsamic vinegar also good, though it’ll turn out more brown)

• ¼ teaspoon salt

• A few grinds black pepper

• ¼ cup (50 grams) olive oil

*Note: I also made this with sunflower seeds for a nut-free friend. The taste is slightly less rich, but it still works well

Method

Add everything except for the olive oil to a food processor. Blend until relatively fine, then keep blending while drizzling in the olive oil. (The spread will be quite thick, but you can add more oil if you want something more like a sauce.) Taste and adjust seasonings.

Store for 4-5 days in the fridge in an airtight container with a little additional olive oil drizzled on top.

Arugula, Cheese, + Date Pesto Sandwich

The pesto slightly elevates this from just being another bread and cheese snack to a summer version of a grilled cheese with fig jam.

Slice a piece of baguette lengthwise and spread date pesto on both sides. Fill the sandwich with a sharp cheese like Gruyere or aged Gouda, sliced sweet tomatoes, and arugula dressed in a little olive oil and lemon juice (the arugula in this picture isn’t dressed, but it would’ve made the sandwich better).

Arugula Salad with Date Pesto

Okay, this salad is basically a breadless version of the sandwich above, but that feels different enough for me! Fry the tofu, if using, in a big batch at the beginning of the week so you don’t have to get the kitchen hot to toss this together.

Loosen the date pesto with a drizzle of olive oil. Toss a bowl of arugula or other salad greens in the pesto until all the leaves are covered. Add halved cherry tomatoes and some kind of protein: crispy tofu is what I used, while my friend had pieces of fancy salami.

That’s all for now, see you in the Hudson Valley!