Celebrity chefs from the Middle East showcase their cooking expertise and demonstrate how to bring out the scrumptious flavors of the date fruit to create delicious meals at the Emirates International Date Palm Festival Cooking Area.

Chefs participating at this year’s date palm festival include: Chef Manal Al Alem, Chef KhuloodAtiqSaeed, Chef Suzanne Husseini, Chef Khalid Arif, Chef Nada and Chef Tomas Reger.

Qaboos Khalid, Event Director of the Festival, Turrent Media, said: “Having renowned celebrity chefs showcase their talents to visitors, and teach them how to take advantage of the texture and flavor of this fruit to create sweet and savory dishes is an absolute privilege for us. We hope that visitors can take home what they learnt at the festival and cook flavorsome meals for their families from their experience here with us.”

The celebrity chefs prepareddeliciousrecipes of baklawa, roasted beetroot with tangy date dressing, and chicken tagine with dates, almonds and ras el hanout spice and sticky toffee pudding amongst many others.

Chef Suzanne Husseini, said: "Dates are enjoyed and cherished like no other food in the Arab world. They were once sustenance for the people living in the harsh desert lands. Dates are one of nature’s most perfect food – they are naturally sweet, nutritious, and full of fibre. They add an elegant sweet note to savory dishes and delightful and satisfying ending to any meal with a tiny cup of Arabic coffee.”

Chef Tomas Reger, Owner, TomasReger Food Consultants, said: “I am very happy to participate in the date palm festival and experience the exhibition from different producers as I was able to learn a lot more about the traditional fruit.”

Chef Nada JaberAli, said: “We are pleased to be participating in the Emirati Date Palm Festival. Dates are a significant fruit with cultural symbolism within the UAE and one which we serve throughout our restaurants at Jumeirah so it has been a great opportunity for us to be able to demonstrate, using local dates, a selection of unique modern dishes. The team at MadinatJumeirah is committed to the use of dates throughout the resort and stuffed dates left in the room upon guest arrival and form an important part of our traditional Arabic welcome.”

In addition to experiencing the Cooking Area, visitors can also experience a widearray of flavors from 25 different types of the date fruit at the Date Tasting area.

The date festival is taking place at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre in Abu Dhabi, UAE and ends on the 26 November 2011. The festival covers two exhibition halls at ADNEC and expects over 17,000 visitors by the end of the weeklong festivities.

The festival is very committed to building communities through social media. It’s Facebook/datepalmfestival and Twitter/datepalmfestnetworks engage fans by offering year round news and promotions.
 

We accept Guest Posts

Download the Dubai City Guide iPhone mobile app

DubaiCityGuide.com is owned and managed by Cyber Gear