hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with beef rendang that's right if
you had all the most knowledgeable most well-traveled food writers in the world
compiled a list of the all-time most delicious foods there are only a handful
recipes that would make almost all of them and this incredibly delicious
indonesian curry would be one of them and if you've had this before you know
exactly why and if you haven't you seriously need to watch the rest of this
video so you can make some so with that let's go ahead and get started by
cutting up our beef and what i have here is a nice big hunk of beef shoulder or
is it's more commonly referred to beef chuck and what we want to do is cut this
into about two inch pieces and as usual the exact size is not as important as
getting them nice and uniform because if you do it means they're all gonna cook
it roughly the same rate so as we like to say around here pick a size and stick
with it and by the way while beef chuck is a fine choice something even fatty
err with more connective tissue like a beef short rib or beef shank would also
work beautifully but anyway regardless of what we use we'll go ahead and cut
that up and set it aside while we move on to what I call the power puree or as
Michelle refers to it the dry curry slurry and what that's going to include
is some sliced shallots or I guess some red onion if you can't find those we'll
also toss in some peeled garlic cloves as well as not one but two kinds of
ginger all right we're gonna do some peeled and sliced regular ginger root
plus some of this which is galanga root which has a thinner skin and lighter
color and a similar flavor to regular ginger although it's a lot more fragrant
and a little more citrusy and if you can't get that just the regular ginger
will do and then we're also going to toss in some hot chilies I'm using some
Serrano and a red Fresno and then we'll go ahead and season this up with some
kosher solids as well as a whole bunch of dried hot chili flakes and I'm using
Korean because I was out of Indonesian and then we'll go ahead and finish up
with some ground coriander some tumeric some cardamom which not to brag but I
ground myself and then last but not least some freshly grated nutmeg and
that's it once we have all that in the bowl of our food processor we'll go
ahead and blitz this until it's very finely ground and I'm not going to
it's a good idea if you stop a couple times and scrape the sides down with a
spatula but anyway we will blitz that on and off
until we have a relatively finely ground mixture looks a little something like
this and then once that's been accomplished
we will transfer that into a large saute pan which contains a couple tablespoons
of oil and what we'll do is cook this stirring over medium heat for about
seven or eight minutes or until most of the moisture has evaporated and what
we're doing here besides taking the raw edge off the garlic and shallots is also
sort of waking up those spices and activating our ginger not to mention
galanga which is almost as much fun to say Zeit select I said we'll go ahead
and cook that over medium until that mixture dries out and it's actually okay
if it starts to brown a little bit and what we'll do once that steps been
completed is go ahead and add our beef to the pan and yes in case you're
wondering it is unusual we didn't brown the beef first but according to my
sources not browning the beef is the most authentic way to do it plus as
you'll see this kind of Browns at the end of the process so we'll go ahead and
add our beef Unbound at which point we will add one can of full fat coconut
milk which is why it looks all separated okay please under no circumstances
should you use a low-fat coconut milk for this right this is called beef
rendang not befriend diet so we want that fat and we need that fat and then
if you can find it we also want to add a little touch of tamarind paste which is
kind of sweet and very sour and very citrusy and then to help balance things
we'll also add a little bit of brown sugar which should probably be palm
sugar but we don't have that which reminds me I'm gonna give you a few tips
in the blog post on what to use if you can't find some of these more exotic
ingredients but anyway we'll go ahead and stir that together and then because
this is gonna cook for so long we'll also want to add some water which we
will do by filling up and rinsing out our can of coconut milk and we'll go
ahead and stir that in as well and then what we can do at this point is crank
our heat up to medium-high because we want to bring this up to a simmer and
while we're waiting for that to happen we can go ahead and prep the last
ingredients which would be our lemongrass and if you can find it it
will look like this and what we'll do is use about six or seven inches off the
bottom end also known as the bigger slightly
lighter end and before we had lemongrass to anything we always want to pound it
with the back of a knife to bring out the flavor okay just think of the
difference between the flavor of a sliced garlic clove and a crushed garlic
clove okay the latter is always going to be
way more intensely flavored than the former and the same thing is in effect
here so we'll go ahead and bruise that with the back of our knife and then
we'll cut that up into a few smaller pieces and we'll add that to our mixture
and by doing big pieces like this we'll be able to pull those out later or at
the very least avoid eating them since lemongrass is extremely tough and
fibrous and pretty much inedible but anyway we'll go ahead and add our
lemongrass and wait for this mixture to start simmering and then here's the game
plan we're gonna cook this on about medium
heat uncovered for approximately four hours or until two things happen all the
liquids in the pan reduced completely encode our beef as well as our meat gets
perfectly fork tender and once in a while you'll win the rendang lottery and
both those things will happen at the exact same time but that is extremely
rare so you're gonna have to be prepared to adjust near the end of the cooking
time depending on which of those two things happens first and if our sauce
happens to reduce all the way before our beefs tender we will simply add some
more water and continue cooking or on the other hand if our beef is tender and
we still have too much liquid we can just crank our heat up to high and
reduce it down and by the way how often you have to stir this is inversely
proportional to how much liquid is in the pan
meaning the less liquid you have in the pan the more you have to stir okay so
for the first hour or two you might only have to stir every 15 or 20 minutes
but as our curry sauce reduces and gets thicker we're gonna want to stir and
toss that beef a lot more often and yes this is what they call a dry curry so
for it to be considered authentic quote-unquote you're not supposed to see
any sauce in the pan but of course have you said that if you want sauce have
sauce I mean you are after all the Vera Wang of your beef rendang so you are
designing this dish but originally this was a way to preserve meat which is why
it was cooked all the way until the beef was dry but anyway to summarize I cooked
mine stirring for approximately four hours until all my sauce had reduced in
duck to the meats and the beef was work tender and I went ahead and pulled that
off the heat and transferred it into this dish so I could show you exactly
how gorgeous it looks but also so I could mention for best results we should
probably let this cool and then wrap it up and refrigerate it overnight and eat
it the next day and supposedly all the flavors will continue to develop and be
even more delicious but having said that I was starving so I went ahead and serve
some up and I topped that with a little bit of freshly chopped cilantro and
because this beef is so rich I do like to serve it with a little bit of fresh
lime as well all right classically this is served
with a garnish of thinly sliced lime leaves which I also do not have and
that's it our beef rendang is befriend done and I will admit visually this does
not look that impressive I mean it looks kind of dry and boring and you're
thinking hey I need some sauce for this but a couple bites in and it will all
make sense because all that sauce didn't go anywhere okay the only thing that
evaporated was water vapor all that goodness is now stuck to the meat which
is just so incredibly and intensely flavored you really don't want her Nita
sauce and while like I say things might look a little bit dry your watery mouth
will more than make up for that and above and beyond the shockingly intense
flavors the only thing that can go wrong texturally is if you don't cook the beef
long enough so please take your time I mean if you're gonna spend four hours
cooking something don't stop 15 minutes too early but
anyway that's it my take on beef rendang as the old joke goes sure there's a lot
of ingredients but at least it takes a long time but the recipe is actually
quite simple and I have a feeling if one day you make a list of the most
delicious things you've ever had I really believe this will be on it which
is why I really do hope you give this a try soon so head over to food whooshes
calm for all the ingredient amounts of more info as usual and as always enjoy
you