Traditional Food Recipes

RENDANG
(Authentic Traditional West Sumatran Food)

Approximate cooking and preparation time: 5 hours  

Ingredients and spices: 

• 1 kg of beef without the fat and muscle, cut thick as if too small it will be easy destroyed during the cooking process ( approximately 2cm x 3cm x 6cm)
• 500 gram small potatoes (wash properly)
• 2,5 liters coconut milk
• salt to taste
• 1 table-spoon tamarind (soak in 3 table-spoon of water, remove the seeds)
• 100 gram red chilies, can be less or more depend on your taste (substitute: Namya Curry Paste)
• 3 cm galangal
• 2 cm turmeric
• 4 cm ginger
• 10 shallots
• 10 cloves garlic
• 3 table-spoon ground coriander
• A pinch of ground nutmeg (optional)

 Spice leave:

• 1 sheet turmeric leaf (optional)
• 4 slices kaffir lime leaves
•  2 stalks lemongrass, crushed

Cooking Directions:

Put red chilies, galangal, turmeric, ginger, shallot and garlic into food processor (or it can be mixer or blender, whichever tool that can make these ingredients become a smooth puree). Then put this puree in to the wok, as well as ground coriander and nutmeg. Then add also all the spice leaf. Finally add the coconut milk, stir well, and then cook it in a high heat. Do not forget to stir it all the time until it’s boiled to make sure the coconut milk mixture will not “brake”. 

Once the sauce boiled, reduce the heat into medium and stir occasionally to make sure the sauce not stick into the wok. Continue this process until the amount of the sauce reduced by more than 30% or until the sauce is producing oil and the color of the sauce changed and do not have “milky” color anymore, this process may take two hours or more. Then add the beef into the sauce and keep the same heat until the sauce is boiled again then for half hour then add potatoes as well as salt and tamarind water to taste. After 10 minutes, reduce the heat to medium and stir it occasionally. Keep this process until the sauce is reduced and the sauce is getting thicker (like in the picture). This process might take at least 2 hours. 

Important Note:

Make sure that the sauce is not sticking to the base of the wok, this is really important as if it’s stick to the base then the sauce will slowly burned which will change the smell and the taste of the rendang. That's why it is important to regularly stir it.

NASI GORENG PETE

Ingredients and spices:

• Cooked rice
• Garlic
• Terasi

To be continued....