Beef Rendang Recipe

 Posting for Kirsten, but feel free to give this a bash if you like slightly spicy curry type foods.  It would work equally well with lamb.  I wish I could remember where I got this recipe, but I've had it for 4 or more years , lifted from somewhere off the internet- an Australian chef - so all credit to the unknown chef. (I think that now covers all the legal aspects of plagarism, since I can't afford to get tied up in litigation this week )

I usually double or triple this recipe because it freezes really well which saves you having to cook dinner another night (or two) You can microwave or oven re-heat this and it still tastes delicious.

You need:

1 kg of gravy beef or casserole beef (cheap cuts of beef are good – I use blade bolar roast when I can get it on special)

1 x 400ml can of coconut milk (slightly more or less won't make a massive difference)

1 onion (Medium to Large )

3 cloves of garlic

2 or 3 teaspoons of fresh ginger (stuff from a jar is fine if you can’t find fresh)

1 stalk of lemon grass ( I omit this because it does weird things to my lips - yeah I know I'm a circus freak  )

1 teaspoon of ground cloves

1 teaspoon of ground turmeric

2 teaspoons of ground coriander

1 teaspoon of salt

1 or 2 teaspoons of chilli powder or sambal olek ( I personally use chilli powder or crushed dried chilli's)

Method

Cut your meat into one inch cubes . Brown your meat and toss it in the slow cooker. Toss everything else , except  the lemon grass into a blender and blatt for 30 seconds or so. Or you can just mix it all together in a jug if you want. I throw mine in the frypan I just used for the browning of the meat and mix it all that way. Pour blender/frypan/jug contents into your slow cooker and give the lemon grass a few whacks with a heavy object and toss into the slow cooker as well.

Stir, making sure all meat is well coated in sauce. Cook on high in the slow cooker for about 4 hours. The sauce will become darker as it cooks. After four hours give it a stir, and turn down to low and cook for another 2 hours.

Serve with Jasmine rice. Yum!

Confession:  I can't cook rice to save myself. Mr. P does this for me. He uses a weird method involving washing the rice in cold water  first, chanting at the full moon, praying to the rice gods and  giving the rice a bath in boiling water in the microwave for 4 minutes before stirring it viciously with a fork and putting it back in the microwave  to torture it some more. It's all greek to me. I just know the rice turns out perfectly every time.

Disclaimer- Everyone’s slow cooker is different , so you may need to adjust your cooking times. If you double this recipe add at least another two hours to the cooking time at the end. True rendang is apparently supposed to be dry, in the slow cooker it will have a gravy which is the way I like it.

More Disclaimers: Don't set your kitchen on fire while cooking like SAJ did recently.

And  as I finished this post, I  thought "I should have done a tutorial with pretty pictures" Bummer. Too late now.