The Ultimate Beef Rendang
Patience is a virtue. Here, your wait will be amply rewarded with a deliciously aromatic beef rendang curry. Serve with rice and flatbreads or simply with just-cooked fresh green beans.
This recipe is from Sarah Tuck's book Coming Unstuck.
Serves: 6
INGREDIENTS
Spice paste
3 onions, roughly chopped
5 cloves garlic
3 tbsp chopped peeled fresh ginger
5 red chillis, roughly chopped 2 stalks of lemongrass, outer leaves removed, roughly chopped
1 tbsp ground coriander
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp ground cardamom
Curry
2 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
1.8kg stewing steak such as gravy beef, blade or cross cut
2 ½ cups (625ml) coconut milk
2 tsp sea salt
2 tbsp tamarind paste
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 kaffir lime leaves, whole
⅓ cup good-quality crunchy peanut or cashew butter
½ cup coriander leaves and 1/4 cup Asian fried shallots to garnish
Rice and flatbreads to serve
METHOD
Put the spice paste ingredients in a food processor and whizz to form a smooth-ish paste. Heat the oil in large heavy- bottomed pot and add the spice paste. Cook over a gentle heat for 10 minutes.
While it’s cooking, cut the beef into 4cm-5cm pieces then add to the paste. Add three-quarters of the coconut milk and salt and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook over a very gentle heat for 5 hours, stirring occasionally. During this time lay a wooden spoon across the top of the pot and rest the lid on it so that a little steam can escape.
After 5 hours, stir in the remaining coconut milk, tamarind paste, brown sugar, kaffir lime leaves and peanut or cashew butter. Cook a further 20 minutes, remove kaffir lime leaves and serve, garnished with coriander and Asian fried shallots, with rice and flatbreads of your choice.
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In Dream Escape, we journey from Japan and Morocco to Italy, India and beyond, sharing recipes inspired by travel, heritage and comfort. We celebrate the champions of the Outstanding Food Producer Awards, explore the stories and recipes of chefs shaped by their cultural roots, and warm up with everything from West African soups and slow-braised lamb to porchetta, butter chicken and beef noodle soup. Alongside destination menus, Scandinavian sweets and cosy pub classics, Chrisanne Terblanche shares her favourite street-side dining spots in Bangkok, while Yvonne Lorkin explores red wine varietals. This issue, we invite you to slow down, turn the pages and escape through food.