Beef rendang

Oh man, beef rendang. I can't even describe the deliciousness involved, super slow coated beef that melts in your mouth, coated in a thick spiced coating of lemongrass, galangal, ginger, onion, garlic and chilli smothered in a thick coconut and tamarind sauce that's been absorbed with golden roasted coconut. You smell it before you even see it. That appetising looking mess of dark brown curry on top of snowy white plain rice. Even if you aren't lucky enough to get a piece of beef, the spicy gravy goes so wonderfully with rice.

It gets better with age, so if you even manage to not finish it off, the flavours just meld even more divinely overnight. It freezes beautifully and I find myself making huge bloody batches of the stuff for a special day at work. The looks of envy on the faces of friends at work is worth it, when they catch a hint of the smell. Just one mouthful transports me to a world of bliss. My god, I love beef rendang.

I first had beef rendang as part of my nasi lemak at Malaya Corner a few years ago and kept going back there to eat more. Then I realised I could probably make it at home. Then I made it from a few different premade jar mixtures. Then a spice paste mixture. Then I tried several online and printed recipes before settling on this one by Neil Perry by way of this ladies blog. I played around with a few different things though, but this one is a very good starting point.

In general, the recipe is an easy one. Make a spice paste, fry off the spices in oil until fragrant, add the meat until coated in spices, top up with water, coconut cream, tamarind, sweet soy and kaffir lime leaves. Put on a lid and simmer for 2-4 hours, stirring occasionally to stop it from sticking. Once you're happy with the consistency of the meat, take off the lid and simmer it down. Toast some shredded coconut and throw at the simmered down sauce to thicken it up. Serve and enjoy!

The honest to God, worst part of this dish is finding galangal. It's a pretty tricky spice to track down as its not particularly well known and there aren't any alternatives like a powdered/frozen/paste version like you can find with say tumeric/ pandan leaves/ lemon grass/ kaffir lime leaves/ shrimp paste. Most of my Indian/Vietnamese/Korean/Taiwanese friends didn't immediately recognise it when I showed it to them either, mistaking it for ginger until they noticed the red hue. The only places I've been able to find it are in Yuen's Market in Sunnybank and certain small Vietnamese run market stalls when they sell it exorbitantly and in poor condition too.

Yuck, avoid

Mama Pham took over and found me a miraculous kilo of the stuff for six dollars a kilo at Inala. Goes to show, that Inala has everything and super cheap too! The stuff she found was the freshest of the fresh. I wish I had taken a photo of it before I put it in the freezer. It was a bright pinkish red, with a glossy skin and no dried out wooden chunks. Picking a good piece of it is very similar to how you pick fresh ginger, the bigger the better as you don't want too waste all your time peeling a little chunk, the thinner the skin and the smoother it looks the better it is too.

Pretty shiny stuff :D!

Unlike ginger however, it has a very, very tough skin. Ginger can be peeled with the back of a spoon, galangal requires a very sharp knife, brute force and possibly chainmail gloves to stop yourself slicing off a finger. Not for the faint of heart.

For the beef, use whatever cheap fatty cut you fancy. I've used topside, chuck steak, gravy beef, blade steak and anything labelled casserole cuts. It's a slow cooked curry, so all these fatty cuts turn into the tenderest meat imaginable while the fat turns beautifully gelatinous and adds body to the sauce. Cut the meat into largeish chunks, they will shrink quite a lot while cooking so please account for that. I normally go about a good thumb sized chunk, about four or five centimetres by five or ten centimetres.

Ingredients for the spice paste:
3-4 dried hot chillis
1 teaspoon of dried coriander
1 teaspoon of dried tumeric
30g of ginger
30g of galangal
30g of lemongrass
1 large onion, roughly chopped
5-6 large cloves of garlic
20g of shrimp paste

I like onions

Ingredients for the sauce:
500g-1kg of beef, cut into large thumb sized chunks, 5-10cms
5-6 kaffir lime leaves
1/4-1/3 cup of shredded coconut
400ml of coconut cream
Not pictured:
2-3 tablespoons of sweet soy sauce
1-2 tablespoons of tamarind paste
1-2 tablespoons of salt 
1.5L-2L of water

I forgot some of the ingredients in this picture

Instructions for the spice paste:
1. Roast the shrimp paste in foil at 180C in the oven for 8-10 minutes until fragrant or cook in a dry frying pan for 3-5 minutes.
2. Chop up the onion, ginger, galangal and dried chilli and place it in the spice mixer.
3. Put in the tumeric, coriander and crumbled shrimp paste.

Yep easy

4. Put on the lid and blend like a madman until a thick paste is formed.

Great stuff

Instructions for the sauce:
1. Cut up all the beef into thumb sized chunks.
2. Heat up a large saucepan/stock pot whatever on a low-medium heat, chuck in all your shredded coconut and toast gently, stirring frequently until all the coconut is golden brown.
3. Put the coconut aside and give the pan a wipe clean.
4. Turn up the heat to a steady medium and add a tablespoon of oil to the pan.

May have gone overboard on the oil here

5. Throw in all the rendang paste. Fry off until fragrant, expect 2-3 minutes, and mix frequently so the mixture doesn't stick.

Fry off that bad boy

6. Throw in the meat and combine with the spice paste until the meat is coated in spices.
7. Put in everything else in, the tamarind paste, the sweet soy sauce, the salt, the kaffir lime leaves, the coconut cream and 1.5L of water.

Like this!

8. Cover and turn down the heat to a low simmer. Cook for 2-4 hours stirring constantly so it doesn't stick to the bottom.
9. When the meat is tender, take off the lid and turn up to a steady medium-hot. Allow the water to evaporate down and chuck in the toasted coconut so it soaks up the juices.

I made 2kg the following week, hence the pot change

10. When it reaches the desired thickness, serve immediately. Don't eat the kaffir lime leaves.