Rendang lovers

Yesssss….. Rendang is one of my favorite dishes there is. But! This dish can be very different depending on where and by who it is prepared. But I will tell you about my version which you will hopefully like as much as I do.

Originally the dish comes from Sumatra. When I was in Padang in Sumatra and was watching the television, I woke up and the Rendang festival was on tv. This looked so good that it still comes to my mind sometimes when I’m hungry. I imagine that this would be the first arrival place when you reach heaven. I would love to go to that festival one day, but that’s another story…

Here in The Netherlands you can order Rendang at every Indonesian restaurants. Also you can buy several bumbu’s in the supermarket to make it yourself. However if you like cooking like I do then the best way is to also make the bumbu yourself.

For us at home we see it as a special activity for on a saturday or sunday since it will take around 4 till 5 hours to prepare. It’s always nice when I have the time on a day to spend on making rendang. Because of the cooking you will smell all the spices from rendang which is an extra benefit and will make you look forward to the point when it’s finally ready. I will let you in on my own recipe, which is actually my remix of the recipe of my indomama. Just don’t let her know I shared her secret recipe, otherwise I would have to kill you.

Beef Rendang recipe Ingredients:

• 700 grams of beef, cut into approximately 12 sections wide
• 4 bay leaves / daun salam
• 5 pieces of lime leaves / daun jeru purut
• 2 stalks lemongrass / sereh
• 1000-1500 ml coconut milk from 2 coconuts
• 2 tablespoons cooking oil
• 1 fingertip of laos crushed
• 10 grains of red onion
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 150 grams of red pepper (3 small peppers and 6 lombok peppers)
• 5 grains hazelnut/ kemiri
• 1 teaspoon coriander /ketumbar
• turmeric 1/2 cm /kunjit
• ginger 1 cm /djahé
• 500 gram of small potatoes
• salt to taste

Rendang ingredients

Now… First some special attention for the beef. The type of meat is very important for the taste of the rendang. Don’t get the lean meat from the super market. Go to the butcher or if you go to the super market make sure you get the beef with enough fat in it. The fat will in the end melt and give the rendang extra taste and will make the meat tender.

Ok ready, steady, let’s start cooking!

First cut the meat in chunks as in the picture.

beef chunks

Now make the bumbu. Put the laos, onion, garlic, pepper, kemiri, coriander, turmeric, ginger, 2 teaspoons salt and one tablespoon oil in the blender. Will it blend? Yes it will! If you want to get the traditional vibe on then you can always use the mortar. But I don’t really see the benefit in it for this purpose. Also I don’t have the patience to do that.

Ingredients in blender top view

blended

Now heat a table-spoon of oil and cook the bumbu for about 2/3 minutes. Just enough to release the fragrance. Now add the meat and cook the meat until all the sides are brown. This will take around 5 minutes.

Meat and bumbu

meat and bumbu cooked

Now that the meat is cooked on all sides we pour 2/3 of the coconut milk and add the bay leaves and lime leaves. Crush the lemon grass add the end to release extra flavour and also add it.

add coconut milk

add leaves and lemon grass

Now put on medium heat until everything is boiling. Then lower the heat so much that it’s just enough to keep it boiling. Stir now and then. At least once per half hour. After around 3 hours you can add the small potatoes and add some more coconut milk so it will not get to dry already. At this moment I normally also take the lemongrass out to avoid a too strong taste of the lemongrass.

Rendang cooking with potatoes

Now let it cook for one more hour and stir every now and then. About once per 10 minutes. Don’t forget to also taste, but be careful that you don’t already start to eat everything!

Rendang almost ready

When the meat still has some bite to eat so it doesn’t fall apart by itself yet, but is also already very tender then it’s time to move to the next step.

Get the rendang on the plate and attack!

rare shot of rendang before it was eaten

Rendang can be shared

Let me know what you think about the recipe in the comments. Also I am very curious if you have any other versions of rendang I should try. Wow, this writing about rendang made me hungry, I’m off to the kitchen!