Rendang (Meat or Chicken cooked in Spices and Coconut Milk and Coconut Paste)

I normally cook rendang on the eve of Eidul Fitri or Eidul Adha.On other days rendang is eaten at wedding feasts.As rendang is a rich dish, it shouldn't be eaten regularly if you wish to maintain your cholesterol levels.Ikmal loves his rendang to be cooked with boiled and then shelled cockles instead of beef or mutton.He would volunteer to shell the cockles as he could put some of them into his mouth at the same time.

Nowadays cooking rendang is easy because you can buy the coconut cream and coconut paste(kerisik,i.e pounded lightly fried grated or dessicated coconut).You needn't put the lemon grass,galangal, turmeric leaves and kaffir lime leaves if you cannot find them.However, the taste would not be the same.

There are many versions of local rendang.Some make the basic rendang with only chillies as the main spice.I prefer the Rendang Tok version originating from the State of Perak.

Here's my recipe:

Ingredients

1kg beef, cut into fairly large cubes.You can use tough cuts as cooking for a long time will soften them and they taste better.

1/2 cup grated coconut for kerisik, fried lightly till crisply and pounded till oily

2 coconuts, grated and squeezed for thick coconut milk then add 2½ cups water to the residue to mix and squeeze out for general santan, or 1 bar of frozen coconut cream or 1 litre of UHT coconut milk.

(A) Finely pounded and mixed (or grounded with water in a blender):

10 fresh chillies, seeded

15 dried red chillies, seeded

20 shallots

6cm galangal

6 cm ginger

3 tsp fennel powder (jintan manis)

3 tsp cumin powder (jintan putih)

6 tsp coriander seeds

6 candle nuts

4 stalks lemon grass (serai)

(B) Spices:

4cm cinnamon stick

7 cardamoms (buah pelaga)

6 cloves

2 star anise (bunga lawang)

(C):

4 stalks lemon grass, smashed

5 pieces dried tamarind skin (asam keping)

3 turmeric leaves, cut in small strips

Seasoning:

1 tsp salt or to taste

2 tsp brown sugar or palm sugar (gula Melaka)or to taste

4 kaffir lime leaves (daun limau purut), cut in strips too

Heat coconut milk with the pounded ingredients (A) and spices (B) in a deep pot or wok until mixture comes to a boil.

Add the beef and simmer over low heat for 1½ to two hours.Add ingredients C.

Stir occasionally to prevent the meat from sticking to the pot. Add the kaffir lime and turmeric leaves.

When the gravy becomes thick, add the kerisik and lower the heat. Stir briskly until mixture is thick and gravy coats the meat evenly.

Add seasoning to taste, then dish out and serve with rice or ketupat. It is also eaten with yellow glutinous rice.

If you are preparing rendang the night before Eid or a feast, refrain from adding the kerisik and coconut milk until the next day so that your rendang will not turn bad.

If you are making chicken or cockle rendang, all the ingredients are fried in oil over low heat before adding the coconut milk and the rest of the ingredients as they don't need to be cooked for a long time.When using chicken broilers for rendang, you can cook them as in cooking beef rendang.