Makes 6 servingsJump to Recipe

Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese are so satisfying and luscious,

you and your guests are going to want to abandon your withering modesty altogether and go through them with shameless depravity, but that’s OK because you can make more almost as fast as you can eat them!

When I come across something like Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese – insanely simple yet hellaciously rich, tasty, and completely uncommon – I don’t let go of it.  The time and labor demanded by most hors d’oeuvres is wildly unreasonable, considering the speed at which they’re eaten. A single bite! Poof! One, two of them … and then your guests expect something new to come along! I’ve always dreaded being on the the cooking end of the hors d’oeuvre toothpick!

Until now! Normally, I’d never openly share a recipe with a labor-to-deliciousness ratio as skewed as this one. But a few unfortunate re-gifting choices this Christmas leaves me in the position of needing to generate some positive karma.  Nonetheless, I’m going to suggest that you don’t share it with your friends! You want your friends to think you slaved all month on these tasty little mofos. So tell them that you had to marinate the cheese, cook it down to just the right consistency, force it through a sieve, and then re-culture it under precisely-controlled conditions for 14 days before impregnating it with a bacteria that occurs naturally only in remote areas of the Andes but is available, thank God, on the internet (if you consider the dark web to be “available”).  I’ll back you up on all of this.

It’s important to use the best quality dates you can get hold of.  You want your date to be soft and gooey, not dry and fibrous. Many people admire Medjool dates for their size and sweetness, but let’s face it: unless you live in Palm Springs or somewhere nearby, it’s unlikely you’re going to have a hundred variety of dates available to you on any given night.  You’d think your local grocery store would be a great place for picking up dates – God knows I’ve tried. If you have a hard time getting any, though, ask around. If you have a friend who’s really into fruits, he can probably tell you the easiest place to find dates – just make sure to tell him that you’re after really good dates, not just cheap ones.

These hors d’oeuvres will be a big hit at your New Year’s Eve party. With a little bit of flair, If you give it 110%, you could make these look like adorable little awesome fucking little footballs for your Superbowl party, dude. Huzzah!

Ingredients

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the dates open just enough to remove and discard the pits. There is something of a trick to this: once you’ve made the slit, use the tip of the knife to find the end of the pit furthest away from the stem-end of the date, just to loosen it. Then, find the other end of the pit nearest the stem-end of the date, get your knife tip under it, and pry the pit up and out of the date, through the slit. You can then pull the pit from the date. 2. Cut the cheese^[1] into pieces just long enough to fit inside the dates, then insert a piece in each date. There’s also a trick to stuffing the dates: throw a kitchen towel over your right shoulder. With your left hand, use a paper towel to pick up one of the dates. Use your right hand thumb to widen the opening in the date. Stuff the date, using your right hand to insert the cheese, and using your left hand to keep the date from spreading open too far. Put the stuffed date on the baking sheet, and press it lightly with your right hand to force it to sit on the sheet stably. Wipe your right hand on the towel. This will keep you from getting cheese all over the outside of the dates. (Reverse all of this if you’re left-handed, of course.) You may not use all the cheese, but this depends on the size of your dates.^[2] 3. Once all the dates are arranged on baking sheet, drizzle with a little oil, then sprinkle lightly with a little salt. This’d be a fun time to use an assertively-flavored oil, but it’s not essential. Course salt is essential. The salt needs to maintain an independence that you cannot achieve with a fine-grain salt, such as regular table salt. 4. Bake for 6 to 8 minutes or until the cheese has softened. Serve warm. Stands up well to re-heating, if necessary.

Dates and Kumquats Debut at Randy’s Fantastic Holiday Dinner:

dates stuffed with goat cheese…

raisin cookies and kumquat cocktails…

standing rib roast, ice berg wedges with bleu cheese dressing,
 king crab legs, brussels sprouts gratin, chocolate peppermint cake…

and an amazing table setting!

Appetizers and Hors d’ouevres:

An “appetizer” arrives as a first course, and you eat it at the table. An “hors d’oeuvre,” on the other hand, is something you eat at a cocktail party, while standing. I provide you with that distinction so you can clobber your idiot friends over the head with it next time they use “appetizer” to refer to cocktail party food. They’ll love you for it.^[3] In the best of all worlds, hors d’oeuvres should be bite-sized. Otherwise, in between the first and second chomps of that absurdly hard-to-bite crostini, tomatoes coated with olive oil are going to fall onto your best dry-clean-only pants. Goddamnit! If your party’s informal and everyone’s in jeans, who gives a whop. You can stuff hors d-oeuvres into your mouth by the fistful and talk while you’re chewing for all I care. But if you tend toward being civilized, you might want to consider whether your Dates Stuffed with Goat Cheese are one- or two-bite items. Depends on the size of your dates, of course. But realize also that goat cheese is utterly rich, and it doesn’t take a lot of it to send your mouth into overdrive. If the occasion’s formal and the dates are large, I’d consider cutting them in half after they come out of the oven. Informal or small dates, I’d serve them whole. In either case, provide toothpicks. Party planning? Check this out. And this, and this.

Notes:

See Also:

Dates Stuffed w/Goat Cheese

Easiest Hors d’oeuvres Ever

Bacon-Wrapped Version

Black-Olive Penguin Hors d’oeuvres

Perfect with kumquat cocktails