Recipe Ladies' Fingers

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have loved sweet dishes prepared with almonds, marzipan and sugar such as the famous Mozartkugel chocolates, or the majestic Mozart-Gugelhupf.

Meatballs of various types are an integral part of Romanian cuisine and the word chiftea (pl. chiftele) (pronounced /kif-te-a/ – /kif-te-le/) is clearly an indication of their Turkish origin, the word being a corruption of the Turkish kofte and related to the Middle Eastern kafta. In the Moldavian region of Romania they are also commonly known as parjoale (/pur-joa-le/) although these seem to be a little larger in size than the standard Romanian chiftea. Due to the preference for pork in the Romanian diet, these meatballs are most commonly composed of pork, perhaps in combination with some beef. Lamb chiftele are quite rare in Romanian cuisine. These cauliflower croquettes have a moist, light interior and, if cooked right, a crispy coating. Cauliflower is more usually pickled in Romanian or the whole florets are battered and fried.

The reason why the Hotel “Sacher” is as popular as Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace is not its luxury accommodation, but the Sachertorte. Its fame has spread well beyond Austria and it is also the basis for this Gugelhupf recipe.

Waterzooi is a classic stew of Flanders. Its name is Dutch, ‘zooien’ meaning ‘to boil’. It is sometimes called Gentse Waterzooi (in Dutch) which refers to the city of Ghent. The original recipe is made of fish, either freshwater or sea, though today chicken waterzooi is more common. The most accepted theory is that rivers of Ghent became too polluted and the fish disappeared. The stew is made of the fish or chicken, vegetables including carrots, leeks and potatoes, herbs, eggs, cream and butter and usually serbed as a soup with a baquette to sop up the liquid.