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curry

Shelley-Belly's Wok Beef Rendang (Updated)

July 10, 2013 By Eleanor Hoh 1 Comment

Shelley-Belly is a foodie chef and a Wok Star!  She made an amazing Indonesian Beef Rendang in her cast iron wok and agreed to share it with us, yay! 

ingredients

I love this chalkboard where Shelley laid out her ingredients & marked them!

Shelley-Belly presents extraordinary “underground supper clubs” in Miami and I’ve been lucky enough to attend two!  Her claim to fame among many other things is her outstanding pork belly with the crispiest skin I’ve EVER had, still dreaming and drooling, I posted about my underground dinner experience here. I couldn’t resist mentioning the piggy, oops.

Follow her on twitter for upcoming dates and check out her blog to get on her list for future dinner dates and tell her Wok Star sent you!  You’ll enjoy it tremendously, it’s how my hubby and I like to dine.

Someone saw her Beef Rendang on Facebook and wanted her recipe, I hope this will be a first in a series of Wok Star guest posts.  If you have my Wok Star Kit, I would love for you to share your creation with us, it doesn’t have to be complicated, just your personal spin!

Take it away, Shelley-Belly…

I do a lot of Asian cooking but don’t generally blog about it because… well I’m not Asian and I’m far from an expert but this one of those dishes that, with a bit of patience, I think most people can get right, or pretty close to right. Rendang is, arguably, the most well known dish to come out of Indonesia… I don’t know that I do it justice, but I do it. If you’ve got all day, do it with beef, if you’ve got a few hours do it with chicken. Ideally though, do it a day or two before you plan on eating it, it improves with age.
There are hundreds of variations and combinations of ingredients for this dish. I’ve seen recipes that include fish sauce, star anise, fennel seeds, coriander seeds, cumin, tamarind (usually found in chicken rendang), nutmeg and a host of other ingredients and it’s probably okay to include any and all of these in your rendang if you choose. I think rendang is about depth of flavour – preparing each ingredient with care and layering the flavors to make a really deep, punchy dish. And, much like a Bourguignon, a Bolognese or a good Irish stew, every household probably has a similar variation on a theme, a “secret” recipe handed down through generations that they will tell you is the best ever. Whatever ingredients you choose to use in your rendang, just make sure they’re good quality and that they’re flavors that you love.
This is my version of a beef rendang or rendang daging. It’s a pretty basic recipe, feel free to change it up but make sure to always include – coconut milk, dried coconut, ginger, turmeric, lemon grass, garlic, shallots, birds’ eye chillies.
Serves four
Time – a little over four hours including prep and cooking.
Best prepared a day or two ahead
Ingredients:
2 lbs beef shin (This weight included four marrow bones. I like shin and neck for this dish but any good stewing cut will do.) Cut into 1 inch cubes. Reserve the bones.
400 ml coconut milk
500 ml to 600 ml water
1 cup dried coconut (toasted in a dry pan or wok until golden)
1 cinnamon stick
4-6 cardamom pods
4-6 kaffir lime leaves (some recipes say to shred these, I prefer to leave them whole and remove them just before serving)
1 tbl spoon (more or less) palm sugar (use brown sugar if you don’t have palm sugar)
1 tea spoon salt (more or less)
4 tbl spoons cooking oil (veg, peanut, whatever you happen to have. I used 2 tbl spoons of canola oil and 2 tbl spoons of coconut oil – don’t use coconut oil on its own as it doesn’t have a high enough smoking point to cook out the spice paste).
For the curry paste
8-10 shallots, skins removed
5 cloves garlic, skins removed
2 thumb sized pieces of ginger, roughly chopped
OR
1 thumb sized piece of ginger and 1 of galangal (I could not find galangal when I prepared this)
8-10 dried chillies, soaked and seeds removed (more or less according to your spice threshold although this is typically a very spicy dish)
8-10 fresh birds’ eye chillies (if you can’t get fresh use a few extra dried chillies)
1 thumb sized piece of turmeric, peeled and roughly chopped
4 stalks lemon grass, roughly 4 inches long, outer skin removed
3 candlenuts (if you can’t get candle nuts use macadamia. I have heard of people using cashews too but I find cashew flavor is too distinctive)
If you’re feeling energetic, now’s the time to break out your pestle and mortar and get bashing. If you’re not, just pop all the ingredients for the curry paste into a blender and blend into a fine paste. Using a pestle and mortar and taking the time to bash each ingredient on its own will give you a finer result but it is a labor of love.
For the curry
Heat your wok, add the cooking oil and bring it up to a high temp. Add the curry paste and reduce to a medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes. Be careful not to let it burn or stick. When the curry paste has cooked through, turn up the heat and add the beef to the wok. Stir to thoroughly coat in the paste, cook for a minute or two, and add the reserved marrow bones if you have them. Add the cinnamon, cardamom, kaffir lime, salt and sugar. Add the water, enough to cover the meat but don’t drown it. Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring gently and frequently, until the liquid has reduced by half. This should take more than an hour. Add the coconut milk and continue stirring and simmering for another two hours. The key with this dish is to allow the flavors to be absorbed slowly into the meat and for the meat to cook to where it is meltingly tender – if you feel the liquid is evaporating too quickly pop an angled lid onto the wok. During this two hour cooking period be sure to taste and make sure the seasoning is balanced – now is the time to add more sugar or salt if you think it needs it.
After a total cooking time of just over three hours the liquid should be all but reduced and the meat just about falling apart. Add the toasted coconut, stir gently to coat (the meat should be almost falling apart by now) and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes. I have seen recipes in which the toasted coconut is added at the same time as the coconut milk – I’m sure it’s fine to do it that way, I don’t because I love the texture of the coconut and don’t want it cooked out.
We garnished the rendang with fresh cilantro and a wedge of lime and served it with steamed rice and stir fried Chinese chives.”

spicepaste-wokrempeh-wok

beginning-wokbefore-coconut-milk

Rendang-wok Plated300

Rendang-presentation Rendang-Chives

I know there are foodies who will want to make this at home but if you’re like me and balked at the process (I’m just too lazy)  with making this Beef Rendang, head out to Indomania, a cozy Indonesian restaurant where they serve it (sorry Shelley).

Filed Under: blog, cast iron wok, curry, Indonesian, underground supper club Tagged With: "Shelley Belly", cast iron wok, curry, Indonesian

Curry Yoki Salmon with Salad (Wok Star series 2.0)

February 11, 2012 By Eleanor Hoh 10 Comments

[Continue Reading]

Filed Under: cast iron wok, curry, myspicesage, salad, salmon, stir fry Tagged With: cast iron wok, curry, salmon

CurrySimple Baked Ribs

July 3, 2010 By Eleanor Hoh 4 Comments

CurrySimple Baked Ribs

We’re not hosting July Fourth this year, it’s kind of a relief because it’s not the cooking but the cleaning and tidying up that takes so long, don’t you find? You can see our last year’s celebrations with Hoisin Spare Ribs and tons of salads etc.

I particularly wanted to share this dish because instead of BBQing your ribs, you can bake them with an Asian twist!
This dish is so easy because with CurrySimple’s readymade sauces, you just open and pour. I am not a fan of premade foods but I must say CurrySimple’s curries are really the best outside of homemade curries.

I discovered CurrySimple when I saw Mike Moran, the founder/owner on Donny Deutsch’s TV show, The Big Idea. His philosophy, “we make Thai food easy’ was such an “AHA” moment. I’m always on the lookout for products that make life easy for people. So, I immediately contacted him and am thrilled to include a pouch of his CurrySimple when folks purchase my Wok Star Kit! Everyone who’s tried it always wants more.

There are some things that should be made fresh like using fresh veggies vs frozen or fresh garlic vs ready peeled in jars of oil. But there are some things like this fantastic idea of combining curry paste and coconut milk in a pouch just makes our lives so much easier. I remember when I was young, my mom used to have the four of us sisters pound curry spices from scratch in a mortar and pestle. I mention this in my Malaysian Chicken Curry blog. Unbelievable amount of work and time which no-one has nowadays.

So, when you crave a good Thai curry, you can make it right at home with the proteins and veggies you have/like and it’s just as good as a Thai restaurant. The Thai restaurants in Miami are so generic like the Chinese restaurants, you might as well open a can of curry sauce and just pour. Sorry to my Thai friends but that’s how I feel. The CurrySimple flavors however, are spot on and the convenience factor is what wows me. I know this sounds crazy but when I came back from my Hong Kong trip, the first thing I wanted was to make a Thai CurrySimple dinner because I was so homesick for the Asian flavors I just left behind. I wanted the spicy, pungent flavors without having to slave at it.

Here’s my really simple CurrySimple Baked Ribs with vegetables you can get all year round – cabbage and red potatoes, a complete dinner:


I didn’t add any liquid to the spicy curry sauce but just poured from the pouch to cover the slab of spare ribs, covered with foil and baked between 1 1/2 – 2 hours. Half way through, I added in the potatoes and cabbage. Easy as that, the meat was tender, juicy and tasty!

A few dishes I made: Curry Salmon and Salmon Salad, enjoy. I’ve got lots more dishes using a variety of their sauces/soups, so keep stopping by.

Take a tour of CurrySimple’s site for tons of cool stuff to try, you can also interact with other fans and upload your photos to share recipes. My favorites are their curries, nice variety from mild to spicy. I got my own personal Badge with my photo on it! Look over the right ->.

I love his site, he keeps improving it. In fact, Mike is so brilliant at marketing his brand that he’s now started another business to help other folks set up their e-commerce sites. I’m very impressed with how much he’s accomplished and love supporting a fellow entrepreneur.

Love to hear your experiences using CurrySimple and if you’ve not tried it yet, hurry over because you’ll wonder what all the fuss is with making an authentic Thai

I leave you with a few articles from New York Times you may have missed. Oh, they want your BBQ photos and stories on their site!

The Secret to Ribs is already in the kitchen: The Oven by Harold McGee, NYT

When Grilling Today Fills Tomorrow’s cravings

Simplify Greek Fish for Summer

Filed Under: curry, currysimple, spare ribs, Thai

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