Mecca Bah Coleslaw

Although I love to eat out and try new places, sometimes I want to eat at a familiar place. A place I know will be good. Not too expensive, not too fancy, just good.

I have found Mecca Bah, at Emporium in Fortitude Valley, to be that place. It is a consistently good restaurant. It's not fantastic, but if I'm after a tasty, cheapish meal, I will often go to Mecca Bah. I know it won't disappoint. The mussel tagine and cheesy katifi pastries are my regular dishes.

This coleslaw is a Mecca Bah recipe. I am not a fan of traditional, mayonaise laden coleslaw, but this is a crunchy, light coleslaw with good flavours and no heavy dressing in sight.

This is the original recipe, but I never bother to measure the ingredients. I also usually double this recipe and add in a couple of grated carrots.

Mecca Bah Coleslaw

1/2 savoy cabbage, shredded

1/2 bunch coriander, shredded

medium red onion, diced finely

50gm pinenuts (toasted or untoasted)

75gm sultanas, soaked in a little OJ or lemon juice for 30 mins

150gm pastirma, shredded

10 ml lemon juice

30ml olive oil

salt and pepper

sprinkle of sumac (I don't use this)

Combine lemon juice, olive oil and sultanas in a jar. Pop the lid on and give a good Set aside.

Toss together cabbage, coriander, red onion, pastirma. Season with salt and pepper.

To serve, toss in the pine nuts and dressing.

Delicious!

Belinda Jeffrey's really good ginger cake

Earlier this year my beautiful maternal Grandmother passed away. She was a fantastic grandma. She was very good at all things "grandmotherly". She could sew, knit, bake fantastic cakes and biscuits, remove any kind of stain and iron and starch any creased garment. She spoilt her grandchildren rotten.

In her old age Grandma had to move into a home and the tables turned - I started to bake for her. She had a very sweet tooth and loved all sorts of cakes with some double cream on the side. She particularly loved this ginger cake.

Belinda Jeffrey's really good ginger cake

from June 2008 Delicious

1.5 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves (I usually leave this out)

1/4 tsp nutmeg

7 small lumps crystallised ginger, chopped finely

125g unsalted butter, softened

1 cup lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup blackstrap molasses (or use treacle if unavailable)

2 eggs

1 tbs finely grated ginger

tsp finely grated lemon zest

1/2 cup buttermilk

1.5 tsp vanilla

icing sugar to dust

whipped cream to serve

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Grease a 20cm square cake pan. Line base with buttered baking paper and dust with flour.

Sift the flour, soda and ground spices into a large bowl. Stir in the crystallised ginger, set aside.

Cream butter and sugar with an electric beater until fluffy. Add molasses and beat until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time. Mixture may curdle, but don't worry - it will come back when you add the flour.

Mix in the fresh ginger and zest, then add in the flour mixture. Add buttermilk and vanilla and beat until all combined.

Scrape mix into cake pan and bake for 35 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool in pan for a few minutes and than invert onto a rack.

To serve, dust with icing sugar.

This cake is quite rich. I use a 23 cm square pan and I normally cut it into 16 or 20 pieces. A great size to have with a cup of tea.