Sunday Kitchen: A Taste of Malta – Mqaret (Maltese Date slice)
It's been a while since I have had a chance to do a Sunday Kitchen recipe, mainly due to having my mum visit from Australia for 3 months.
While she was visiting she had time to teach me how to bake some of my favourite childhood Maltese dishes.
My mothers Mqarets (pronounced im-ar-ets) being the ultimate favourite; it’s a traditional date slice.
Now, I can’t give you the recipe as it’s a family secret...... No not really ;) but as mum has been doing it for many many years, there is no measuring - so when I attempt to make them myself (this is once I manage to get through the batches that we have frozen) I will weigh ingredients and post it, this probably being around Christmas time as they delicious warming.
Here is description of these little beauties! They are pastries with cooked, softened dates and the juice/rind of an orange. Lemon also added with the rind of mandarins, this is all then drenched in either Aniseed Essence (or for a boozy lift add Ouzo) covered in pastry and deep fried. Eat while hot with a dusting of icing sugar, best with a good cup of coffee! This rather quick description doesn't do it justice, so you will all need to make them for yourself to try! So stay tuned for the recipe :)
Mum has now been gone for a week, and we just finished the original batch
of Mqarts she had made us (we still need to get through the frozen batches).
The smell of her cooking them took me back to being a kid
and getting ready for one of many parties or family gathering, and the smell of Mqarets cooking always reminds me of many trips to Malta. Once you step off the bumpy bus ride
and enter the magnificent Maltese bus terminal of Valetta- that is the smell
you will encounter with vendors frying them fresh to order.
