Spicy Fried Sardines (Ikan Sarden Saos Tomat Pedas)

400 g sardines or other small fish, cleaned
3 tablespoons cooking oil
2 red chillies, seeded and sliced
8 green/red bird's eyes chillies(reduce if you don't like it too spicy)
2 clove of garlic
3 shallots
1 cm fresh ginger, peeled and sliced
1 cm fresh galangal, peeled and sliced
1 stalk lemon grass, use only the white part, chopped
1 medium tomato, cut in wedges
1 tbsp tamarind juice
1 salaam leaf
1/2 tsp brown sugar
salt to taste
2 tbsp water
basil

Spice Paste :
1 shallots
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp white peppercorn
1/4 tsp coriander
1 cm fresh ginger
1 cm fresh fresh turmeric

Wash the sardines, drain and marinate with salt. Leave for 30 - 60 minutes. Heat the oil and fry the fish until golden brown.

Prepare spice paste by grinding or blending all the ingredients.

Heat 2 tablespoons of cooking oil and saute the chillies, garlic, shallots, ginger, galangal, lemon grass, tomato, tamarind juice and salaam leaf over high heat for 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add sugar, then the spice paste and fry another 2 minutes, stirring frequently.

Combine the fried sardines with the spicy sauce in the wok, add water. Cook for another minute, stirring well, then serve, garnished with basil.

Steamed Glutinous with Coconut Sweet Filling (Kue Bugis/Kue Mendut)

250 g glutinous rice flour
50 g starch (tepung Kanji)
100 ml pandan leaves extract (extracted from fresh pandan leaves)
150 ml (or more) water
1 teaspoon lime stone paste (kapur sirih)
banana leaf
200 ml thick coconut milk

Filling:

100 g of grated fresh coconut
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
100 g brown sugar, fine comb
½ tsp salt
100 ml of water

Filling: Cook all filling ingredients together until sugar melts and becomes rather dry dough. Remove and let cool.

Mix glutinous rice flour, wheat starch and other ingredients until the dough is dull. Adjust the amount of water to the dough condition.

Take 1 tablespoon of dough, flatten. Fill with 1 rounded teaspoon of filling dough.
Give a little lime stone paste, put in a heat resistant container.

Steamed until cooked. While still hot (please be very careful), wrap each of the balls with banana leaves. Allow to cool and serve.

Spicy Fried Chicken (Ayam Goreng Bumbu Pedas)

1/2 kg (500 gram) chicken
Salt and pepper to marinate the chicken

1 stalk of lemongrass
2 Salam leafs/bay leaves
Cooking oil for frying

Spice (Blend) :

5 cloves of garlic
5 shallots
5 Candlenuts
5 red chillies, seeded and sliced
2 bird's eyes chillies (optional)
1 tomato, sliced
1 cm Galangal (Laos)
Salt and sugar to taste

Cut chicken into 8 pieces, marinate with salt and pepper, fry and set aside.

With remaining oil, sauté the spice paste together with salam leaves and lemongrass until fragrant. Add chicken, stir well. Add some water and continue cooking until all blended spice are absorbed.

Saffron may help Lift your mood

Saffron has long been used in traditional Persian medicine as a mood lifter, usually steeped into a medicinal tea or used to prepare rice. Research from Iran's Roozbeh Psychiatric Hospital at Tehran University of Medical Sciences has found that saffron may help to relieve symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) and depression.

In one study, 75% of women with PMS who were given saffron capsules daily reported that their PMS symptoms (such as mood swings and depression) declined by at least half, compared with only 8 percent of women who didn't take saffron.