Rendang: world's most delicious food

It's totally true! Beef rendang took the top spot in CNN GO's list of best food in the world. OK, so Facebook polling isn't exactly scientific. But whatevs, a dish that takes hours to labour over definitely deserves to be named the best food in the world.


This the second installment to my (seemingly ridiculous) journey to cooking the Top 40 Indonesian food. This version of rendang slightly omits some spices which I couldn't find in Swiss supermarkets. It's probably not the most traditional way to cook it, but for me it worked. And I figured it still tastes pretty good, since I made this at a dinner party last weekend and not a scrape of rendang sauce was left on the plate :) 

Sustainable cooking tip
Use a pressure cooker if you have one, as it is a much more energy efficient way for slow cooking. Portland Tribune did this experiment in testing out the most sustainable way to cook a leg of lamb (same principles as beef rendang, right?) and found out that pressure cooker on electric stovetop range consumes the least amount of energy. This really saves like 3 hours of my life, plus because you can brown the meat straight in the pot that means less dishes to wash up :)

• Pressure cooker on electric stovetop range
• Cooking time 45 mins, energy used 0.45kWh
• Crock-Pot or countertop slow cooker
• Cooking time 4 hours, energy used 1.1kWh
• Stainless steel pot in oven
• Cooking time 3 hours, energy used 2.3kWh

Rendang
For the meat use a type of meat that is as lean as possible, as fat is hard to break down and makes the rendang a bit chewy. Try grass-fed beef (who hopefully have had a happy life grazing around under the summer sun) or buffallo or maybe kangaroo (don't diss Skippy, it's the cheapest, leanest, most sustainable meat around). I haven't really tried the roo option yet, but will give it a go when I'm back in Oz. 


Ingredients:
1kg of lean meat, fat-trimmed, cubed (give it a good bash to tenderize the meat before cooking) 
5 shallots, chopped finely
5 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 bunch of coriander leaves, chopped finely
1 x 400 ml of coconut milk 
1 teaspoon of cloves
1 teaspoon of nutmeg
1 tbsp of cumin
2 cm ginger, grated
1 tbsp of tamarind paste (use vinegar if you don't have tamarind)
2 stalks of lemon grass, crush the bottom part to release the flavours
2 birds eye chili (go as mild or as crazy as you like)
2 cups of stock (you might not need all of it)
3-4 bay leaves
1 cinnamon stick
2 tbsp peanut or sunflower oil
Optional: baby potatoes or other slow cooking vegetables


Method:

1. Prepare your rendang paste. In a mortar and pestle crush up the shallots, garlic, chili, nutmeg, cumin, ginger, tamarind and coriander leaves. If you want a more intense flavour you can chop up the lemongrass as well. Keep crushing until you get a fine pulp. 
2. Heat up the oil in a wok or straight in the pressure cooker. Throw in the rendang paste that you gloriously laboured over, fry until the fragrances fill up the kitchen, reminding your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/kids that they are lucky to have an in-house awesome cook. 
3. Chuck in the meat and brown them for a few minutes, making sure they are coated in the paste. 
4. Pour in the coconut milk, bay leaves, cloves and cinnamon stick. Add the stock to make sure the meat is completely covered. 

• If you're using a pressure cooker, check the instructions to make sure you have the right amount of liquid. Adjust the amount of stock accordingly to reach above the minimum line, pop the lid on and cook under pressure (I set mine on high pressure) for about 30 mins. Release pressure, open the lid and check that the meat is ready (almost crumbles when you poke it). Then continue cooking for about 15-20 minutes uncovered under medium-low heat to let the sauce darken and thicken. 
• If cooking on stove top, bring to the boil and then cook on simmer uncovered for 3 hours until the liquid is reduced. 

Serve with a steaming bowl of white rice.