Family favourites

Stuffed curried eggs and Afghan biscuits are old favourites that I think are perfect to share with friends and family as part of an Australia Day picnic. Be sure to make plenty of both as they will be popular and disappear quickly.

The curried egg recipe is especially for my friend Peter Johnson, who loves curried eggs. As I have worked on the recipe, he has been my chief taster and has given it his tick of approval.

Afghans are little chocolate biscuits topped with chocolate icing and walnuts. They contain cornflakes, which make them a bit crunchy. Some recipes also have coconut in them. I am not certain of the biscuit's origin and history, but think it likely they were named after the Afghan cameleers and camel trains that were so important in opening up and developing the Australian outback from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s.

I think the small mounds of biscuit, with icing and walnuts on top, resemble a camel's hump with saddle and luggage; anyway it is a good story. The earliest recipe I can find for the Afghan biscuits (with coconut) is in the Country Women's Association Coronation Cookery Book, first published in 1937.

Stuffed curried eggs

• Diana Lampe is a Canberra writer, dlampe@bigpond.net.au