Rendang (Indonesian)

On June 5th I turned 25!  I had good times even though my boyfriend and I were broke...  The previous weekend, we went to my mom and had T-bones on the barbecue, got some money and a food processor from mom and dad!  On the 5th, I met my boyfriend downtown after his job and we went light shopping (we had $30-40!), had cheap delicious Banh Mi in Chinatown, found a plant of Vietnamese mint!, then I chose this Indonesian cooking book (I'll elaborate later)!  Then on the weekend, we had a couple friends over, our apartment is small, our balcony is kind of spacious and the weather was really nice!  We ended up chilling on the balcony most of the day.  A friend brought drinks, chips and candies, another friend bought everything to assemble a sponge, whip cream and fruits cake, and I made maki sushi, oyaki with soboro pork and some crazy indonesian eggs that I'll have to make again just to share the recipe with the world.  I really should have taken pictures of the feast.  It made me really happy because everyone kept on saying with their mouth full how good it was, or eating and just nodding with the "this is good!" eyes!  It makes me so happy to cook for others!

So back to this Indonesian book!  We went to the bookstore and I had $20 and some change left from our bithday date budget to buy a book.  I cooked enough Vietnamese food lately and I wanted to try some new flavours!  When I check a book about a type of cooking I never tried before, I mostly look at the ingredients.  Indonesian food, of which I know almost nothing of, is full of garlic, chillies, sambal oelek, kecap manis (sweet soy sauce with the texture of oyster sauce), coconut milk, lemongrass, galangal, palm sugar...  Everything I like!  And no cilantro anywhere (poor cilantro, I hate him)!

The said book is called Indonesian Cooking by Dina Yuen.  It's a book of mostly easy but really tasty dishes and also a couple different sambals (really intense condiments served with satays, lalapan, everything really).  I didn't know until I checked on the internet, but a proper Indonesian meal is served with a lalapan, which is an assortment of fresh and blanched vegetables accompanied by any kind of sambal from what I understood.  The vegetables can be tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuces and herbs, blanched green beans, any type of vegetable that ends with choy (blanched), any type of cabbage (blanched), any greens...  That's what I've seen around the internet, but I guess you can put whatever you want or have in the fridge.  Tonight I'm making a noodle stir-fry that doesn't have that many veggies, so I'll try making lalapan to balance things out (and for fun!).

You'll hear a lot about this book, Indonesian Cooking by Dina Yuen, from where today's recipe comes from.  I present to you Rendang, some kind of very fragrant beef curry, from the book, simplified by me and including some of my tips!

(serves 4)

Grind everything into a paste (with mortar or food processor):

-14 garlic cloves, peeled

-2inches of peeled ginger, sliced

-1inch galangal, peeled and sliced

-white parts of 2 lemongrass stalks, roughly chopped

-1 1/2lb beef, cubed (for short time stewing)

-2tsp sambal oelek

-3/4tsp salt

-2cups coconut milk

-1tsp or more black pepper

-1/2tsp sugar

-1/4tsp turmeric powder

-10 kaffir lime leaves

In a medium sized NON-STICK (learn from my experience) pot or high pan, warm up 2tbsp of oil.  Add the paste, sambal oelek and salt and stir 2 minutes until fragrant.  Mix in the beef cubes for a minute, then add the coconut milk, black pepper, sugar, turmeric powder and lime leaves and bring to a boil.  Reduce the heat to medium/medium-high, and simmer for 45 to 90 minutes (depending on the cut of beef) until the beef is soft enough. If it needs more liquid, add a little hot water.  To test this I poke one big chunk of beef with a fork, and if it's too hard to pull the fork out easily, it's not ready yet.  Serve with rice and a salad or veggies or lalapan!