Beef Rendang

My sister was visiting and having seen most of Singapore’s sights, decided she wanted to do something special: a cooking course. Beef rendang was top of the list of favourites. I felt it was not worth spending hundreds of dollars on a class though. Indah’s rendang is the best I have ever eaten. I had wanted to get her recipe off her for some time, and thankfully she agreed to teach us of the finer points of rendang making in our own kitchen. 

When Indah first started working for us, I asked her if she knew how to cook rendang. I don’t eat much meat, but make an exception or this fragrant delicacy. As an Indonesian, of course Indah knew the dish, but no, she had never cooked it. She had worked eight years for a Chinese employer, perfecting her Chinese cooking skills, but neither them nor the western employers she worked for after had ever asked her to cook any Indonesian food. Indonesian happens to be one of my favourite cuisines – for the Dutch it is as familiar as Indian is for the British, we consider nasi goreng with satay one of our national foods.

‘And when you were little,’ I asked, ‘would your mother not cook curry’s like that?’ Indah looked at me with shy eyes. ‘No ma’am. We could never afford beef.’

In the years that followed Indah, who has a natural talent for spices, perfected her rendang recipe until she finally has one she is happy to share, with us as well as her family back home. So I proudly present: Indah’s beef rendang recipe.

Beef Rendang (Indonesian sweet beef curry) 

1 kg stewing beef, in cubes
600 ml coconut milk
~ 4 tbs oil
3 stalks lemongrass (sereh)
10 kaffir lime leaves (jeruk perut)
2 turmeric leaves (kunjit)
1 tbs tamarind pulp
1 cinnamon stick
4 tbs fried ground coconut (kerisek) (or dried grated coconut)
2 asian bay leaves (salam)

2 cm fresh galangal, in slices 

4 cardamon pods

7 cloves

2 star anise
1 tsp sugar
½ tsp salt

For the spice mix (bumbu)
5-20 large red chili’s
20 small shallots
8 cloves of garlic
2 cm fresh ginger
2 cm fresh galangal
2 cm fresh turmeric
1 ½ tsp ground dried coriander (ketumbar)
1 tsp ground dried cumin (djinten)
½ tsp ground dried nutmeg
½ stalk lemongrass
8 candlenuts (kemiri)

Outside of Asia, some of the ingredients might be hard to get. Don’t worry, your rendang will still be tasty. Fresh ginger is fairly ubiquitous these days, it’s nephews galangal and turmeric less so, so you can use the dried, ground variety instead. Candlenuts give a nutty, creamy texture to your spice paste, they can be substituted with other nuts like almonds or macadamia. Turmeric leaves can be left out. Don’t replace the salam leaves with Western bay leaves, they are very different in flavour. Better to leave them out altogether if you can’t get them.

First, make the bumbu:

For curry, always start by making the spice paste. Traditionally this is done in a mortal and pestle, but these days we use a modern blender. You can use as many or as little chili as you like, depending on taste. Add all the bumbu ingredients, coarsely chopped, to the blender. Blitz until it is a fine paste, adding a few tablespoons of oil if needed to make it smooth. Don’t add water!

Then, start cooking:
Then we need to fry the bumbu, for this heat a little oil in a big pot and stir well after added the paste. Fry until fragrant, 5-10 minutes should do it. Then we start adding the other ingredients. First, the herbs. 

The lemongrass, chopped into pieces of a few cm, and slightly crushed to release flavour. The kaffir lime and salam leaf slightly torn. The turmeric leaves, if you can get them, are very large, so roll them and tie into a knot. Add the cinnamon stick, sliced galangal, aniseed, cloves, cardamon and fry all for a few more minutes before adding the beef. After the beef is slightly browning, add the dry coconut and coconut milk. Let the tamarind paste soak in a few tablespoons water and add the juice but leave out the seeds and hard bits. 

Stir well, and let the curry simmer for at least 1 ½ hours. The longer you let it simmer, the darker your rendang will become in colour. It will be even tastier the next day! Taste the sauce, and finally add salt and sugar to taste. Adding a bit of sugar will help combat spiciness. 

Serve with rice and vegetables. Green vegetables like beans, sugarsnaps, kangkong, or spinach work well. 

Don't eat meat? You can make this rendang with tempeh instead!

Interested to see more of Indah’s recipes? Check out my personal favourites: her fried tempeh and sambal eggs.

Boontjes met vlees

Kids and vegetables, always a tricky combination. It is not that long ago that Linde looked at me, head cocked, stating with a weary voice: Mama, you know I don’t eat vegetables. She did not say it, but I could read the why do you keep serving them in her eyes. 

Yet a few months ago when I asked what she wanted to eat on her birthday, she summed up, without hesitating: green beans, broccoli, pink fish (salmon steak) and rice. In that sequence. I am still  recovering from the shock. 

Green beans especially have been a firm favourite in our household for a while. We have had fights over who could get the last ones, and those were fierce fights too. The other day we served two large packets of beans, and I had naively assumed that after three of my kids would have feasted on those, enough would be left for Indah’s dinner. No. They ate them all. 

I remember how much I hated green beans growing up, especially those served at my grandmother’s house. Memories of green beans boiled to death in the classic Dutch way still make me shudder. We never have those. I have not boiled a vegetable since I-can’t-remember-when. We stir-fry. 

Credits for the popularity of green beans can be granted to a dish we call, very prosaically, ‘boontjes met vlees’. This translates into, well, ‘beans and meat.’ The dish is as simple as it is yummy, consisting of stir fried, ehm, beans and beef. 

Roel claims to be the inventor of this famous dish, the recipe of which has been further perfected by Indah (and we will tactfully ignore the fact that it is in fact a classic Asian disc). Last Monday when we (we meaning Indah) cooked this dish I brought it out to five children, ready at the table, chanting ‘boontjes met vlees’, while banging their knives and forks on the table to the rhythm. Our little guests (who had had it before and had requested it) complained that when their aunty made it for them, it was just not as good. 

And since I know that all you parents out there are now dying to get this famous recipe that will get your kids to gorge on green beans, without further ado I present Indah’s version of: 

Boontjes met vlees 

(stir fried beef with green beans)

500 g stir-fry beef, in thin strips

2 or 3 (~200g) packets of green beans, cleaned and in 3-5cm pieces

1 onion, finely chopped

1-2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

kechap Manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) 

for the marinade:

3-4 tablespoons light soy sauce

2-3 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon corn starch

pepper and salt

I have given indicative quantities for most of the ingredients because we don’t really do exact measuring in our kitchen, and also because it depends on your personal preference. You can’t really go wrong much, and you can always add more soy sauce or oyster sauce later. Mix all the ingredients for the marinade, and add it to the beef. Let it sit for a while, at least half an hour. 

Heat a wok with a generous glug of oil and fry the garlic and onion for a few minutes. Add the beans, and stir-fry these for a few minutes as well until they are almost done, before you add the beef. Make sure your wok is hot and you stir well. When everything is cooked, add a generous glug of kechap manis to taste. Serve with plain rice, and sambal for those who like some added bite.