Seadas

Ingredients:

• 1kg type 00 flour, semolina flour or durum wheat flour

• 400ml warm water with a pinch of salt

• 100g lard or butter

• 1kg ricotta

• 100g self-rising flour

• 200g sugar

• 2 egg yolks

• 2 rind grated lemons

• 50gm sultanas

• vegetable oil

• bitter honey

Method:

1. Drain the ricotta and wash the sultanas with lemon juice and pat dry and put aside.

2. For the pastry melt the butter or lard in warm water and salt, add flour and work it into a dough. Knead until smooth into a ball.

3. Cover with cling film and let it rest in the fridge for 30mins.

4. Beat the egg yoghs into the ricotta, add the sugar flour, lemon rind, the sultanas and mix it gently.

5. Take the dough out of the fridge and divide it into four parts.

6. Use a pasta making machine to obtain a strip of pastry about 2mm thick.

7. Cut circles out of one pastry strip and at the centre of each circle place about two tablespoons of ricotta filling.

8. Cover the disks with the pastry strip, pressing gently to let the air out. Wet the edges and seal them, cut out with a pastry cutter with a curly edge, around each disk.

9. Deep-fry each seadas, in abundant hot oil, on both sides until golden. Drain on paper towel and serve them with a drizzle of warm bitter honey.

Ingredients:

• 500g chopped walnuts

• 600g sultanas

• 150g sugar

• 200g water

• a pinch each of ground fennel, cinnamon and cloves

• 2 oranges rind grated

• 1 lemon rind grated

• plain flour, as much as required to bind the nuts and sultanas

• Optional – ⅓ of a cup of Vin Cotto (Wine Must)

Method:

1. Place the water with the sugar in a pot and bring to the boil, simmer for 5 mins.

2. Mix the nuts, sultanas, spices, lemon and orange grind together with the sugar and water mixture. Add small amounts of flour until the ingredients bind together, shaping them like a Christmas Tree.

3. If you like, add approximately a ⅓ of a cup of Vin Cotto (Wine Must) which makes the mixture darker, but will require additional flower to bind the mixture.

4. Bake in a moderate oven, approximately 160°C for 20-30 mins.

5. Once cooled the biscuits can be decorated with icing sugar and a few drops of lemon juice, piped around the biscuits to resemble Christmas Tree decorations.