Beef Rendang

I've got to say, this photo is badly taken and doesn't do the food justice, It was taken in a hurry and it was not taken by me. Haha.

This dish is one of my favourites. This is a classic Malaysian dish, normally served during festive season, like Hari Raya Aidil-fitri. Nowadays, you can find it everywhere in restaurants in Malaysia and Singapore. It kind of reminds me of the french dish Boeuf Bourgionne, or the Hungarian Goulash, or the English Stew. This is the Malaysian version of the famous beef stew.

I got this recipe out from an ancient recipe book as a gift from my dad. Dad's a librarian (yes, he's as ancient as the book). The recipes are all written in classic, olden day Malay and so I have to translate it into English from here. I hope i get the measurements correct because nowadays, you don't use Kati anymore but Kilos. If you really couldn't be bothered to pound and grind the ingredients, the easy way is to drop by Hong Kong Trading in Hötorget and ask them for Prima Taste Rendang paste. I got 5 packets of that from friends visiting from Singapore and it taste just as authentic as the original ones, although the packet ones do not come with kerisik (or toasted dessicated coconut). Sometimes, small thins like this makes a lot of difference to a dish.

I remember making Duck Soup with pickled mustard for my friends in Singapore long time ago, and they were all slurping and ooohing and hmmming away and couldn't put a finger as to why my soup tasted so deliciously different from theirs, and in the end, at the bottom of the claypot, they found a big knob of bruised ginger, thrown in to the take away the smell of the duck. That was my secret. But, that will be on another recipe blog later.



800gm-1kg beef chunks
1 can creamy coconut milk, about 400-500ml
1 can light coconut milk, about 400ml
4 tbsp cooking oil
pinch of salt
Juice of 1 lime
1 cup kerisik or dessicated coconut (toast in a pan till brown)
4 kaffir lime leaves, trim into small long strips


Ingredients to pound/grind
10 pcs dried chilli
1 tps black pepper
1 thumb-size ginger (peel off skin)
1 thumb-size tumeric (or you can substitute with 1 tbsp tumeric powder)
5 cloves garlic
10 shallots
4 stalks lemongrass (cut off top half and discard, use only bottom half)
4 pcs of candlenuts (or subsitute with Almond nuts, skin off)


Method
Add cooking oil in a pot under low heat, add the above pounded (or ground) ingredients. Fry slowly till fragrant. (your whole house will be filled with the aroma of these ingredients). Add in beef chunks, salt and fry for 3 minutes.

Add in the coconut milk (not the creamy one but the lighter one) about 200ml at a time. Cook until the liquid has dried up before adding the rest of the 200ml. After this is drying up, add the thick coconut cream. You have to keep stirring it every 5 minutes under low heat so you won't burn the beef and the coconut cream will not curdle. Yes, it takes a lot of effort if you are really desperate. This whole process takes at least 1-2 hours. I will give you some tips i discovered after this.

After the meat is really, really tender, and the gravy has thicken and turned a dark brown colour, add in juice of 1 lime, kaffir lime leaves and dessicated coconut and coat the whole beef with it. Serve with steaming hot rice.


Tips:
1. Kerisik (or dessicated coconut) is important to this dish, you can omit it if you are too lazy to toast them separately. You can buy dessicated coconut from the bakery / confectionary section of your local supermarket.

2. Kaffir Lime leaves. The recipe book didn't call for it and i don't understand why. I added this one in myself. I find that adding kaffir lime leaves into rendang is a must. It adds a tangy balance to an otherwise cholestrol rich dish. It's like the sour cream in goulash and stroganof. I myself have a thriving plant of Kaffir plant in my study room window. As fresh as you can get.

3. Candlenuts are difficult to get hold of nowadays. Long time ago, people used candlenuts for all curried/spiced dishes. The nuts are needed as they release oil when blend together with the rest of the ingredients. Candlenuts are considered to be the cheapest nuts during those days, since people were poor and couldn't afford to buy macadamia or almonds. Recent studies shows that candlenuts are not advisable to congest in large amount as it may be poisonous and Almonds are the best substitute as it has a high content of oil.

3a. To peel off almond skin, put the nuts in a hot boiling water for 5 minutes. Then take out and peel off the skin effortlessly.

4. 2 Hours of stiring is just too much? well, get a pressure cooker and put the whole 2nd paragraph into the cooker and pressure cook for half an hour. Make sure you know how to use a pressure cooker first before attempting to use one. 2 hours of cooking cut down to 30 minutes, dish the contents back into the pot and cook further till all the gravy has dried up significantly. Then follow paragraph 3.

Good luck!