Dates, grapes and goat cheese super balls snack

Learn to prepare these dates, grapes and goat cheese super snack balls, a savory dessert that makes you crave for more.

Dates, grapes and goat cheese super balls snack

Prepare these nice and nutritious dates, grapes and goat cheese super snack balls, a sweet and savoury appetiser or dessert that makes you crave for more.

Course Appetizer, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine Mediterranean, Ramona's Cuisine

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 0

Total Time 20

Servings servings

Calories 225kcal

Author Ramona Sebastian

Equipment

knife
chopping board

Ingredients

8 dates (pitted) (Medjoul variety is a must)
8 red grapes (seedless) nice and crisp
1 pinch pepper (freshly ground)
100 g goat cheese (aprox)
80 g pistachios (salted) chopped and toasted

Metric - US Imperial

Instructions

I will start with most challenging part of this recipe and that is chopping the pistachio nuts and toasting them. Hard task hey? Once finished, put them on a plate and set aside.
Place the grapes onto a plate and freshly ground for some black pepper over. Pepper will stick if they have been freshly washed and they are slightly damp otherwise you can put the paper into the cheese it's absolutely fine, or, coat the grapes in oil. * As you can see I have ground the pepper after placing the grapes inside the date.
Cut open the dates and then slightly squeeze the dates to both ends to kind of open the cut a little bit. *
Place each grape into the cut date. Be pretty gentle with carrying out this task.
Divide the goats' cheese into eight equal pieces. Place each piece or chunk of cheese into your hands and flatten it with the heel of your other hand.
Now it's time to assemble those little 'fellas' and you can do this by placing each date that already has a grape cushioned inside it on the flattened cheese. Bring the cheese around the date covering it completely.
Roll these balls as you make them, one by one into the chopped pistachios and if those are not salted you could sprinkle some coarse sea salt over the nuts. It gives that perfect extra saltiness that it's really needed to complement the sweetness of this snack. You know what I mean, right?

Notes

I've mentioned that Medjoul dates are a must and this is because they are big and juicy and very easy to handle. I would not recommend any other ones simply because if they are small and dry obviously it would be challenging to fit a grape inside it so just use these nice quality dates.

After cutting the Medjoul dates open, simply squeeze them to enlarge the cut. For reference see picture below:

The recipe was calling for a bit of olive oil but I have left that out as I didn't find it necessary at all. It was for the pepper to stick to the grapes.
A few more ingredients that you could use here: some coarse sea salt, a dash of Cayenne chilli pepper, flaked red dry chillies.
If you don't like goats cheese, just use another type of cheese that has the same texture and it isn't made from goat's milk.
Why pistachio nuts you may ask? Well, they look good, colourful and are really tasty as well as crunchy. You can certainly try and use different nuts such as walnuts, almonds, cashew, macadamia, etc.

If you don't fancy all this rolling business you could simply make this combination as a salad in a bowl (I have made it that way few times it tastes as great obviously but it doesn't look just impressive). If you're not too fast about the looks, go for a salad, it's as beautiful and yummy.

Can be served as both starter or dessert.

A salad variation of the dates, grapes and goat cheese super snacks

Bon appétit! Please let me know what you think of those beauties. Did you like them as much I do?

Nutrition