Assyrian cuisine tomato sauce and baked in the oven, not unlike the Levantine version of moussaka), "shamakhshi" (fried rolled eggplant stuffed with ground beef in tomato sauce), "Dolma" (rice and tomato sauce stuffed in grape leaves, cabbage, various peppers, zucchini, and eggplant), "Masgouf" (fish spiced with olive oil, salt, and turmeric, topped with tomatoes, potatoes, and onions then oven-baked) and "Lahmacun" (flatbread topped with ground beef, tomato paste, spices, and onions). Sesame seeds are important to the cuisine and used to make tahini, there is even an Assyrian folk tale about the gods drinking sesame wine on the night before they created
Almond paste claw pastry. In Scandinavia almond paste is used extensively, in various pastries and cookies. In Sweden (where it is known as mandelmassa) it is used in biscuits, muffins and buns and as a filling in the traditional spring season pastry semla and is used in Easter and Christmas sweets. In Denmark (where it is known as marcipan or mandelmasse), almond paste is used in several pastries, for example as a filling in the Danish traditional pastry "kringle". In the Netherlands, almond paste (called "amandelspijs") is used in "gevulde speculaas" (stuffed brown-spiced biscuit) and banket. It is used as filling in