Ikan Balado/Fried Fish in Tangy Chili Sauce

Balado is one of the sambal from West Sumatra (a.k.a Minang) Most Indonesian know how to make balado. The basic ingredients are shallots, chilies, tomato, lime juice, salt and sugar. I learned this version of balado from our Indonesian helper in Malaysia many years ago. I like it on blanch vegetables or just simple fried fish like this. The fish tasted so perfect with the tangy sweet balado.

Nutella Swirl Thumbprint Cookies

Christmas is just around the corner and I am sure many of you are busy baking cookies now. I won’t be baking much this year. I asked Diana what cookies she wants me to bake for Christmas and as usual she wanted Chocolate Chips cookies and this Thumbprint Cookies. These cookies are one of the classic cookies that I made every Christmas. I think we like it a lot because of the combination of buttery cookies and sweet jam.

Making these cookies is a bit more work if you are doing it alone as it took me a couple of hours just to roll them and filled them up with jams. Feel free to get your family or friends involved if you are making this. I add some Nutella to the dough to make it look a bit more attractive. I just mailed them to Diana and another friend of mine in PA and I hope they like it.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

I don’t normally make breakfast but if Diana is around I will try making it for her. She came home for Thanksgiving so I made these for our breakfast one morning. Since I don’t have any chocolate chips in pantry I just added some chopped chocolate to the pancake. To serve we had it with some butter, sliced bananas and maple syrup,

Szechuan Style Eggplant

I made this dish when I was under the weather not too long ago. With the medicine, coughing and stuffy nose and all, my taste bud went haywire. No mood to cook or appetite to eat anything except for rice porridge and soup. There were 2 eggplants in the vegetable compartment and it is going soft and wrinkles on me. I always have this habit of buying egg plant but never cook them so it always end up in the garbage bin but I am not going to let that happen this time.

Since I like eggplant a lot I convinced myself to cook it and 20 minutes later a plate of aromatic, spicy and sweet dish to have it with my porridge. This is exactly what I needed to clear up my nose and head. I made this dish with hot bean paste which is commonly used in Szechuan cooking. You can get it any Asian store and some supermarket even carries it.