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Beef Rendang

Pressure cooked till the beefy chunks of meat are wrapped in a rich caramelized rendang flavour. Goes best with lemang or nasi lemak!
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Ingredients
  

To be roughly chopped then blended to form a smooth paste:

  • 20 shallots
  • 1 whole garlic bulb
  • 4 fresh red chillies
  • 20 dried chillies Soak in some hot water to soften
  • 2 lemongrass Only use white portion at the end
  • 20 g ginger a medium sized knob
  • 5 candlenuts
  • 2 tbsp meat curry powder Add this into the blended paste and stir once ready.

Cut of beef

  • 1 kg beef chuck tender Cut into thick chunks

Kerisik (Toasted Coconut)

  • 1/2 cup grated coconut Toasted over a saucepan (no oil added) - dry fry till turns brown then pounded in a pestel and mortar to get kerisik

Others

  • 250 ml coconut milk Mine is from a carton.
  • 1/2 turmeric leaf sliced finely
  • 4 lime leaves sliced finely
  • 3 asam keping / dried tamarind pieces can be found easily in any Grocer where all spices are kept

Seasoning

  • 3 1/2 tbsp palm sugar/ brown sugar or white sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions
 

  • Heat up 5 tbsp oil in pressure cooker and add in blended spice paste. You want to fry this for 5-10 mins till fragrant. Add in beef and mix. Pour in coconut milk and mix.
  • Add in dried tamarind, kaffir lime leaves and turmeric leave shreds.
  • Cover pressure cooker and cook over medium heat until indicator rod comes up. Once the indicator is up, turn down heat slightly - and pressure cook for 15 mins. After 15 mins, switch off flame and release pressure. Once pressure is released, open lid. You will see quite a bit of liquid here, DON"T panic. It will be cooked down.
  • Switch on flame again, put in seasoning and kerisik and cook for further 30 mins or till gravy is cooked down and to your liking. Stirring on and off esp towards the end.
  • Towards the end, you will see the rendang has been cooked down, gravy much less and beef is tender. Taste. If you think it's too spicy add just 1/4 tsp sugar. Let the rendang rest.

Notes

Top tips:
  • Get the right cut of beef. You need to ask for Chuck Tender. They have it in Jaya or Village Grocer.
  • I do not de-seed all the chillies, you may want too if you feel it might be too spicy later on.
  • Pour some water but not too much into blender when blending ingredients. There is alot of ingredients to blend so it might be better to not add all into the blender at one go. I blend some first, then top up remainder into blender and blend.
  • I used coconut milk from the carton. If the carton is only 200ml, then use all of it and top up with 50ml water. That is actually what I do.
  • Leftover grated coconut can be kept in freezer, as well as candlenuts and asam keping. Candlenuts can be subbed with macademia nuts. I've tried this.
  • You can keep extra lime leaves or turmeric leaf shred for garnish.
  • Be sure to cut beef into thick chunks, they will shrink slightly as they cook in pressure cooker.
  • Quite a bit of prep work - but oh so worth it!