International Cuisine

Ingredients:

1 package active dry yeast

1 ½ cups milk

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup melted unsalted butter

1 large egg

4 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cornmeal

1 teaspoon salt

Vegetable oil for frying (Gloria used light Olive Oil during demonstration)

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a dough hook, combine yeast, milk, sugar, butter and mix well for two minutes. Add the egg and mix well. Add 4 cups of flour, cornmeal and salt. Beat at low speed until all the flour is incorporated, then on medium speed until a ball of the dough forms, adding more flour as needed if too sticky.

Remove from the mixer, form into a ball and place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled, about 1 hour.

Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured surface and pat into a thick rectangle, about 1 inch thick. Roll out until about ¼ inch thick, and with a sharp knife, cut the dough into squares, about 2 ½ to 3 inch squares.

Heat the fryer to 360 degrees F.

Drop the dough into the hot oil, being careful not to overcrowd the sopapillas as they are cooking, and turning them constantly to cook on all sides until golden, about 3 minutes per batch. Remove the sopapillas from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

Serve the sopapillas hot, drizzled with honey.

(Turkish way: Serve it with feta cheese :)

½ cup bread crumbs

½ cup chopped walnuts

1 tbsp cumin powder

1 tbsp paprika powder

1 tbsp dried mint leaves

½ cup olive oil

½ cup sweet pepper paste (biber)

½ cup tomato paste

3 cloves finely chopped garlic

3 tbsp lemon juice (½ lemon)

Mix everything together.

Ingredients

6 cups flour

1 cup yoghurt

1 cup milk

1 packet yeast

3 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp salt

½ cup oil

Dissolve yeast in slightly warmed milk. Then mix the rest of the ingredients together and allow the dough to rise for 20 minutes in a covered bowl. The risen dough should be very sticky and soft with lots of air pockets.

1 cup feta cheese

Pull out golf ball sized lumps of dough and flatten into a circle. Place 1 teaspoon of feta cheese in the middle and fold the dough over into a semi-circle and seal the opening. Placed pocket dough on a greased pan and bake in the oven at 350F until golden brown.

2 cups milk

1 cup sugar

1 cup cocoa powder

1 tbsp vanilla powder or extract

1 stick melted butter

¼ cup oil (mild-flavored oil)

1 cup finely chopped walnut/hazelnut or dessicated coconut

2 packets of Marie biscuits (any plain tea biscuits)

Saran plastic wrap & aluminium foil

Mix milk, sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla together and stir until smooth. Slowly add butter and oil until well mixed. Now add the nuts & coconut and crushed biscuits into the cocoa mixture and stir gently into thick paste.

Line a bread loaf pan with plastic wrap. Pour the thick paste onto the plastic wrap and spread evenly. Now wrap over the paste tightly and place into the fridge for an 1 hour to cool and set. Remove from the fridge when the paste has solidified. Slice and serve cold.

Cake:

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup all purpose flour

1 tbsp baking powder

6 dried figs (soaked in hot water for 10 mins finely minced)

1 cup finely chopped walnuts

Beat eggs until creamy yellow then add sugar, flour and powder to egg mixture. Beat till smooth. Stir in figs and walnut into batter.

Pour batter into greased pan (flat rectangular pan). Batter should be about 2/3 inch high.

Bake at 300F for about 20 minutes, till golden brown. It is done when the tooth pick comes out clean.

Syrup:

1 tbsp Nescafe

½ cup sugar

1½ cups water

Heat mixture until sugar and coffee powder is dissolved. Cool & pour evenly over cake.

Custard layer:

5 tbsp sugar

5 cups milk

2 tbsp wheat starch/corn starch

2 tbsp flour

½ stick butter (3 tbsp)

1 packet cream powder

Add sugar, milk, corn starch, flour and butter into a pot and warm over medium heat. Keep stirring to prevent the bottom from burning. Add cream powder last and stir until smooth. Custard is ready when mixture is evenly mixed and thick. Pour over syrup soaked cake.

Topping:

1 cup finely chopped walnut

Sprinkle walnuts over the custard and let the cake cool in the fridge. Serve when cold and custard layer is firm.

* If you don’t have cream powder, add 1 extra tablespoon of corn starch or flour to thicken the custard.

Ingredients:

6 dry figs – chopped

1 cup walnuts – chopped

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup flour

3 eggs

1 tbsp baking powder

Syrup:

1 ½ water

1 tbsp instant coffee

½ cup granulated sugar

Pudding:

2 tbsp cornstarch

2 tbsp flour

4 cups milk

5 tbsp sugar

50 gr butter (about 2 tbsp I guess)

1 powdered whipped cream (from Turkey—if you don’t have this item, you can increase the amount of flour and cornstarch one tablespoonful each, and skip this.)

Preparation:

1- Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix eggs and 1 cup sugar until it is foamy. Add all the other ingredients of the cake except the fig and keep mixing for about at least five more minutes. Finally add the figs and pour the batter in a rectangular pyrex dish and put it in the preheated oven.

(If you add the fig too early, then the batter becomes darker in color.)

2- While the cake is in the oven, mix all the pudding ingredients except powdered whipped cream in a pan over medium heat. Stir it continuously until it gets dense. Keep it boiling for about a minute and add the whipped cream. Mix it with a mixer for about five minutes.

3- Take the cake from the oven and wait for about 3-4 minutes. Mix the syrup ingredients and slowly pour it over the cake.

4- Pour the pudding over the cake. Keep it in the fridge for about 2-3 hours before serving.

Rice Mixture

Butter/Olive oil

Finely minced onion

Ground pork or beef

Long grain rice

Tomato paste

Biber

Fresh minced dill

Fresh minced mint leaves

Fresh minced Italian parsley

Salt & Pepper

Water

Olive Oil

Heat oil and fry finely minced onion until soft and translucent. Add ground meat, and spices and fry till cooked. Add rice, water, tomato paste, biber, dill, mint and Italian parsley and continue to cook until rice is half done. Take off heat and cool.

Grape leaves (Orlando brand)

Pour away the liquid in the grape leaves bottle and soak the grape leaves in warm water for 10 mins. Cut away the stems of the leaves. Place the amount a teaspoonful of the rice mixture at the edge of the leaf, nearest to the stem. Roll like spring rolls but make sure that each stick should be about the thickness of a finger. If the leaf is too big, half it. When done with rolling, place all rolls lying down into a pot and cover with water. Put a plate with weights on top to keep the rolls steady when boiling. Cover the pot and bring to a boil. Cook for 30 to 40 mins until rice is cooked. The water is usually dried up when done. Let the pot cool totally before opening. Otherwise, the rolls will dry up and darken. When cooled, pour olive oil over the rolls and drizzle lemon juice for flavor. Serve cold if there is no meat in rice. Otherwise, serve warm.

Small sweet peppers

Cut out core of vegetables and stuff rice mixture up to ¾ full. Top the peppers with a cherry tomato. Line the vegetables in a pot with the opening on top and packed tightly. Add water to the pot until the water level is about ¾ of the height of the vegetables. Cover pot and bring to boil. Then reduce heat and continue to steam for 30 to 40 mins until rice is cooked. Cool and drizzle olive oil and serve.