Nadine Bonda

A holiday cookie if we ever saw one! So buttery, so nutty, so delicate, so mind-bendingly charming, these traditional Viennese cookies rival the city's fancier pastries as our fave.

Tangy, hot, sweet, silky. That's what we think of this citrus-scented risotto with sautéed shrimp that melds healthy with satsifying.

Tender chicken and sausage meatballs sidle up alongside sweet leeks and a tipsy white wine cream sauce. Then the whole shebang is topped with indecently rich and flaky puff pastry in this recipe from (90s flashback alert) Jamie Oliver.

In Portugal, deep-frying beans is a long-standing tradition. Serve these peixinhos da horta as a starter, snack, or, as the Portuguese do, a side dish.

What's with the thankfulness, you ask? For starters, this sleek, sophisticated, tender-crumbed cake smothered in butterscotch and stacked to the heavens.

What makes this apple cake so incredibly moist that it stands out from the rest? Lots of things, including a lovely swirl of cream poured on top of the batter and baked right in.

There's a double whammy of chocolate in these indulgent cookies that are loaded with chunks of chocolate and sprinkled with sea salt.

One of Portugal's most beloved dishes, these deep-fried fritters are a melding of salt cod, potato, and onion that are readily devoured.

Sonhos--Portuguese for "dreams"--is an apt name for Portugal's dreamy doughnuts that are as easy to make as they are to eat.