Good food takes time and this is one of those dishes. It's strangely satisfying making everything from scratch and how these different ingredients that went into it somehow made sense and turned into one coherent fragrant dish that's so comforting and tasty. And if you are wondering, don't worry, the portion is for plating only, there's a massive bowl of this consumed behind the scenes.
Difficulty: Medium
Time: 4 hrs
Serves: 2-4
Ingredients
Beef Rendang
- 700g beef cheek (approx 2 cheeks) cut into even portions
- 5 tbsp oil
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 3 cloves
- 3 star anise
- 3 cardamon pods
- 1 lemon grass cut into 10 cm pieces and bruised
- 1 cup coconut cream
- 1 cup water
- 2 tsp tamarind pulp/paste
- 6 kaffir lime leaves finely sliced
- 6 tsp desiccated coconut toasted
- 1 tbsp palm sugar
- salt
Spice Paste
- 5 shallots sliced
- 3 cm galangal sliced
- 3 cm ginger sliced
- 3 lemongrass white part only sliced
- 5 garlic cloves sliced
- 12 dried chillies rehydrated in hot water, deseeded and sliced
Pickled Radish and Cucumber
- 4 mixed radish thinly sliced with mandolin
- 1 cumber sliced with a peeler into ribbons
- 1/3 cup white vinegar
- 1/4 caster sugar
- 1/8 tsp salt
Coconut Rice
- 1 cup rice
- 3/4 cup coconut milk
- 1/2 cup water
Garnish
- 1 tbsp desiccated coconut toasted
- 2 kaffir lime leaves thinly sliced
- 1 red chilli thinly sliced
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 120 degrees.
2. Add all the ingredients for spice paste into a spice blender and blend it until a fine paste.
3. Heat some oil in a cast iron pot, add the spice paste, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, and cardamom and fry until well caramelised and aromatic. Add the beef and the bruised lemongrass and stir for a minute. Add the coconut milk, tamarind juice, water and salt, simmer on medium heat, stirring frequently and bring it to boil. Add the kaffir lime leaves, toasted coconut and palm sugar and mix well. Place the cast iron pot with lid on in the oven and cook over the next 3 hours until fully softened. Finish by adding more salt and sugar to taste.
4. Make the pickling liquid by combining the salt, vinegar and sugar in a bowl. Mix well to ensure that the salt and sugar is fully dissolved. Place the radish and cucumber in the pickling liquid.
5. Wash the rice well with water. Add it to a rice cooker with coconut milk and water and let it cook.
6. To assemble, place a piece of the beef cheek on the plate and dress generously with the gravy. Garnish with toasted coconut and kaffir lime leave on top. Place some rice on the plate next to the beef cheek, with some pickled cucumber and radish.