Gingerbread à la Meg

200 gm flour
1 heaped teaspoon ground ginger (powder)

1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

3 tablespoons black treacle

1 tablespoon golden syrup

6 tablespoons milk

240 gm butter
1 egg, beaten

100 - 200 gm candied ginger, chopped (optional)

Sieve and mix the dry ingredients together. Melt butter, milk, syrup and treacle in a pan.

Mix the melted ingredients and the beaten egg in to the dry ingredients. Add the chopped candied ginger. Cook 1 hr in a moderate oven (175 deg.C).

Dandelion salad/ Loewenzahnsalat

about 500 gm dandelion
3 hard-boiled eggs
200 gm bacon bits (optional)
2 tabsp lard (optional)
2 big onions, diced
oil
vinegar
salt to taste

After cleaning and washing the dandelion, cut the leaves into 1-inch pieces. Place in big salad bowl.

Fry the bacon bits in oil till just before they turn brown. Add the diced onions and fry till they turn "glasig" (translucent). Add the lard and heat up the mixture. Remove from heat. Let cool a bit. The add 1 to 2 serving spoonfuls of vinegar to it. This is the salad dressing.

Shell the eggs and dice them. Add them to the cut dandelion. Add the onion, bacon and lard salad dressing which can be warm but NOT hot. Season with salt and toss well.

Baklava - low sugar version

Ingredients A:
100 gm chopped nuts
40 gm dessicated coconut
70 gm fine brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Ingredients B:
melted butter
about 12 sheets filo pastry (can be bought in most supermarkets in New Zealand. In Germany, if supermarkets do not stock them, try Turkish shops)

Mix ingredients A in a bowl. Put aside.

Spread 1 sheet of filo pastry onto a tea towel. Brush it lightly with melted butter. Then spread another sheet on top of the first buttered sheet and brush this one with melted butter, too.

Sprinkle the nut-coconut-sugar mixture evenly onto the buttered pastry.


Roll it up and cut into 5 cm pieces. Bake at 175deg. C for 15 to 20 minutes till golden brown.

Serve hot or cold.

Egg tart Chinese style

For the pastry:
2 cups flour
125 g butter
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 egg yolk
30 ml milk
vanilla essence

Cream butter with icing sugar. Add egg yolk, milk and vanilla essence. Add flour. Line cups (cup cake size) with dough.

For the egg filling:
4 x size 7 (biggish) eggs
1 cup sugar
slightly under 2 cups boiling water
300 ml unsweetened evaporated milk
few drops vanilla essence

Melt sugar with water. Whisk egg with milk. Add syrup, then strain. Pour egg mixture into pastry moulds.

Bake immediately in preheated oven at about 180 deg. C. for 35 mins.

Spanish tortillas à la Fenella

8 big potatoes
1 onion, diced
4 eggs
salt to taste

Boil the potatoes. When they're done, peel them and mash them slightly so that they are chunky. Set aside.

Fry the diced onion.

Beat the eggs. Add fried onions to the egg, then the mashed potato. Add salt to taste.

Pour mixture into pan and cook on both sides on medium temperature.

Optional -You may some add serano schinken to the mixture.

Seafood paella à la Bertha

600 gm risotto rice
1 medium cuttlefish/squid
12 prawns
100 gm clams
250 gm mussels
1 white onion
1 green bell pepper
4 small ripe tomatoes
2 dl olive oil
3 cloves garlic
salt
1.5 l fish broth
Optional: pork ribs 300gr, chicken (adobo cut) 200gr, green peas, green beans, artichokes’ hearts, etc.

Heat up the oil in a flat pan and fry cuttlefish; and prawns a little bit only. Remove and in the same oil fry onion, green pepper and tomato very finely chopped. Let it fry until water is evaporated and colour is dark red or brown. Add cuttlefish back in the pan and the rice, and stir well with a spoon.

Add hot boiling broth on it; add prawns, clams and mussels (previously opened with steam).

Cook at high for about 4 minutes, taste and add salt if necessary; and add the garlic, chopped.Cook for about 16 to 18 minutes at low fire.

Coconut chutney

1 freshly grated coconut
half cup yellow peas (boiled, well-drained and cooled)
1 green chilli
1 pip garlic

Blend the above together.

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1 teasp mustard seeds
1 teasp white dal
2 tabsp oil

In a pan, heat the oil, add the spices and fry till the dal "pops". Remove from heat and add immediately to the coconut blend.

Serve with dosai.