I had a couple of big slices of rump steak sitting in the freezer from some abandoned barbie in the summer. It was about time they were pressed into action and I'd been yearning to cook a Beef Rendang so the stars seemed to be alignment to cook.
A bit of research revealed all manner of recipes, ranging from those using a packet mix to ones involving all manner of spice grinding. I opted for one of the quintillion that I found on the internet.
Curry paste mix
- 150g shallots
- 3cm knob of peeled, sliced ginger
- 5 peeled garlic cloves
- 6 dried chillies, soaked in hot water (deseeded if you're not fancying some heat)
- tsp toasted coriander seeds - ground
- tsp toasted cumin seeds - ground
- 1 lemon grass stick - finely chopped
All this goes into the blender, with good measure of the chilli soaking water, and is whizzed to a nice smooth paste.
1/3 cup of vegetable oil goes into a hot pan - I used an open, oval metal dish - and the curry paste added. The original recipe asked for sliced turmeric and kaffir lime leaves. Having neither of these I pared the rind from a lime, using a neat little zester which makes nice long fine stripes, and added this to the paste as it was cooking. Cook and stir the paste until it is fragrant and has taken on some colour.
- 1kg rump steak
- 2 tbsp curry powder
- 1 can coconut cream
- 1 cup freshly toasted shredded coconut
Trim and cut the steak into 1 inch cubes. You want nice chunky ones, these will cook in the sauce as it reduces and clings to them. Add the cubes to the paste and stir to coat. Sprinkle the curry powder onto the meat, stir to combine and leave to cook a little.
I let these cook a little into the paste, then stirred in the coconut cream and some water that I used to swill out the remains from the can.
In a separate dry pan I toasted the coconut and then ground it in my (lovely new) spice grinder. It didn't go super powdery but maybe I didn't grind it for long enough. The ground coconut went into the mix and it was stirred well.
The oven had gone on earlier, at about 150c, and the pan went in for a long slow cook. The aim is to render the sauce thick and gloopy.
The beef went in at 3:30pm and cooked at 150c for about an hour, I then dropped the heat to about 60c and continued to cook it until 7pm. I couldn't help but to prod and poke it periodically. At the 5:00pm mark I thought it seemed to be tasting bitter, so I put in two chunks of palm sugar. I'd found a handy package with pre-formed rectangles of sugar so I just buried the cubes under the surface of the sauce and left it to it. At 6:00pm I thought it was getting too dry so I slung in about half a cup of water.
7pm came round as did our supper guests, unfortunately I'd got so wrapped up in the beef I'd forgotten to put the rice on. It was around half seven by the time we sat down to dinner.
By this point the Rendang had settled into its stride and was warming and flavourful. Complemented by a range of accompaniments, see separate entry for these, it was very good indeed.
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