[Mirabelle]

Rendang originated in Indonesia and is now made throughout the country, and in the hundreds if not thousands of street food marketeers in Bankok Thailand. When Rick Stein went filming in Malaysia, he set about making his own version, but it's much too fiery for me! So I went in search for a tamer version and happened upon a lovely adaptation by 'spaulyseasonalservings' as shown here:

https://spaulyseasonalservings.com/2...endang-recipe/

Like the recipe author, I like spicy heat in my mouth, but not in my throat though your heat threshold may differ from mine so use less chillies according to preference. This morning I made this recipe. It smells good and tastes marvellous!

Beef Rendang

Ingredients (serves 4)

Rendang Paste

• 100g grated fresh coconut (can use desiccated)
• 4 dried Kashmiri chillies
• 2 tablespoons coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds
• 1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
• 225g shallots or onions, roughly chopped
• 30g garlic, roughly chopped
• 50g peeled galangal or ginger, roughly chopped
• 1 large fresh red chilli, seeded and roughly chopped

For the Curry

• Glug of oil. I used rapeseed
• 1kg of braising steak chunks (also known as chuck steak)
• 1 quantity of rendang spice paste – as above
• 2 tins of coconut milk
• 4 fat lemon grass stalks – bruised – (just bash them lightly)
• 12 dried kaffir lime leaves – crumbled (if not, use curry leaves)
• 2 x 7.5cm cinnamon sticks
• 125ml Tamarind water – all you do is soak the 60g of pulp in 125ml of hot water and leave for 5 minutes. Break up the pulp with your fingers and then strain the syrupy mixture through a fine sieve, discarding the fibrous material and seeds. (- Instead, I used a heaped teaspoon of tamarind paste)
• 1 tbsp of palm sugar or you can use brown sugar, palm sugar will taste better in this dish.

For the paste

1. Heat a dry, heavy based, frying pan over a medium heat. Add the coconut and stir for a few minutes until it is richly golden – don’t let it burn.
2. Tip into a food processor and leave to cool.
3. Meanwhile, put the dried Kashmiri chillies, coriander seeds and cumin seeds into a spice grinder and grind to a fine powder.
4. Add this to the processor with the cooled coconut add the rest of the spice paste ingredients and 100ml of water. Blend to a smooth-ish paste.

For the curry

1. Heat the oil in a large, heavy based frying pan. Add the beef in batches and fry briefly until it has changed colour but not browned, set aside in a bowl. Add the spice paste to the pan and fry for a couple of minutes until fragrant. Return the beef and add the coconut milk, lemon grass, lime leaves and cinnamon sticks and 1 and a half teaspoons of salt.
2. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, add the tamarind water and leave to simmer, uncovered for 2 and a half hours, stirring occasionally, and more frequently towards the end of cooking, until the beef is tender and the sauce has reduced and thickened.
3. Remove the lemongrass from the rendang and stir in the palm sugar and season to taste.
4. Serve straight away with some wild rice, cooked to packet instructions. Enjoy.

Edited to add: Wild rice is actually a grass and in the UK can cost quite a lot. Instead, I'd use basmati or a long grain rice, finely chop a couple of scallions or some mild green salad chillies to jazz the rice up and put a bit of colour in it. Or, a nice chunk of crusty sourdough bread to mop up the delicious juices!