Recipes from Malaysia

So yes, shrimp paste. Now, here's a funny thing about shrimp paste, I really, really hate how it smells, and I hate working with it, but it's not actually that bad in stuff. There, I said it. It's a little bit like a really stinky cheese in that if you can just get past how it smelled when the food was cooking, it's actually almost enjoyable to eat.

Of course, I have never personally been able to get past the cheese stink in order to actually like eating stinky cheese, but that might have something to do with the fact that I once read that stinky cheese smells like someone's dirty feet because the bacteria in it is literally descended from the stinky feet of monks who used to press the cheese curds with--you guessed it--their stinky, unwashed feet. I guess I really don't care that those were unwashed feet from centuries ago, because that still has a seriously huge ew factor.

Wait, how did I get off on a stinky cheese tangent? Oh yeah, shrimp paste. Before I head off into that direction again, let me just tell you what recipes I chose for our culinary trip to Malaysia.

Beef Rendang. A flavorful beef dish that does not have any shrimp paste in it.

Nasi Goreng.  A fried rice dish that does have shrimp paste in it.

Pineapple Cookies. Modestly entitled "Best-Ever Pineapple Cookies," which might come pretty close to actually deserving that title, though I admittedly don't have any other pineapple cookie recipe to compare them to.