Adapted as text from French Guy Cooking’s Beef Rendang video.
6-8 servings
- Toasted coconut
- 10tbsp dry shredded coconut
- Dry spices
- 5 cloves
- 4 green cardamon pods
- 1 stick cinnamon
- 0.5tsp black peppercorns
- 1 star anise
- Paste
- 8–10 dried chilis
- 1 thumb (5cm long, 1.5cm thick) ginger
- 1 thumb galangal (or substitute more ginger)
- 1 pinky (probably 1cm long 0.5cm thick) turmeric root
- 5 cloves garlic
- 200g shallots
- 2 sticks lemongrass (cut away stiff parts, use the white part)
- Meat
- 2tsp salt
- 1kg (2.25lb) beef chuck (or shin shank or short ribs)
- cooking oil
- 1×400ml can coconut milk
- 1×400ml can coconut water
- Last touches
- 2tsp tamarin paste with enough hot water to make it runny
- 3 kaffir lime leaves
- Toast dry shredded coconut in a wok at medium heat for 3-4 minutes or until golden brown and very fragrant.
- Roast (in wok but no oil) the following on high heat for 1 minute or until fragrance is outrageous:
- cloves
- green cardamom pods
- sticks of cinnamon
- black pepper corns
- star anise
- Put them in pestle and mortar and bash until a fine powder.
- Remove shells and other large non-powder things from mortar.
- Roughly deseed 8-10 dried chilis by cutting them in half (perhaps with scissors).
- Place dried chilis in a jar and pour boiling water over them.
- Let the chilis sit for at least 10 minutes.
- Skin and roughly chop:
- ginger
- galangal (or additional ginger)
- turmeric root
- garlic
- shallots
- lemongrass (only take the white part, perhaps see lemongrass cutting instructions)
- Place in food processer and process into a paste:
- skinned and roughly chopped items
- deseeded chilis (remove from water (ensure they have been there for at least 10 minutes first))
- a touch of water to help the food processor
- Cut beef into 1in chunks.
- Season beef with salt.
- Sear beef in large wok with a bit of oil over high heat for about a minute (likely to seal juices in).
- Add paste and dry spices and stir to thoroughly coat each meat chunk.
- Pour in:
- coconut milk
- cocunut water
- Bring to boil.
- Lower heat.
- Continue stirring occasionally. Don’t stir too vigorously (try to keep the cubes from breaking apart or you’ll end up with shredded beef) but don’t stir too little (or it’ll burn).
- Cook for nearly 2 hours to reduce the sauce.
- Dilute tamarin in hot water and make gloopy/runny sauce (or straight up use/reduce tamarin juice concentrate(?)).
- Remove and discard the stems of kaffir lime leaves.
- Slice kaffir lime leaves thinly.
- Add the following to to the stew:
- toasted coconut
- tamarin sauce
- thinly sliced kaffir lime leaves
- Stir and cook for 15 more minutes.
- Serve on banana leaves with rice.