How to Rendang Beef (South East Asia Curry Beef)

Rendang Beef is a delicacy native to the South East Asian cuisine, usually served during festive seasons where it is cooked in massive quantity to be eaten in due course of celebration days. "Cooking beef rendang can be time consuming and tedious" from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendang . Indeed, this is very much true. Ever since yours truly discovered sous vide and experimented with sous vide rendang beef short ribs URL here: http://shin-ajaran.blogspot.sg/2013/08/beef-rendang-sous-vide-70degc-24-hours.html , he has never looked back since then.

Now with this DIY sous vide method, Rendang beef is never a dish at the luxury expense of time or effort.

Christmas dinner last year took an unexpected turn. There was only one sous vide setup in the premise, and there were some mismanagement of time. time constraint has to be met; it is not possible to sous vide rendang beef and the giant hunk of dry aged rib eye on time to serve dinner to a hoard of hungry guests. Luckily, the trusty crock pot comes to the rescue.

This is a cheating method because of 1. the curry paste is not made from scratch, 2. use of crock pot instead of a deep wok.

parts needed

1. 3kg of beef short ribs, deboned, and cut into cubes of 2cm x 2cm

2. 2 bottles of ayam brand rendang paste. Yeo's would work too. These are easy to find in your regular oriental store.

3. 2 packets (~600ml) instant coconut milk in a box

4. beef scraps (oddbits, silver skin, some fats) from processing the beef short ribs into cubes

5. 1 whole onion, sliced thinly.

methodology

1. smoother rendang paste with cubes of beef short ribs. marinade preferably over night. This round, it is only marinated for 4 hours.

2. lace bottom of crock pot with sliced onion, followed by beef scraps.

3. arrange cubes of beef short ribs on top of the beef scraps and sliced onions.

4. pour in coconut milk to the beef and add cover to crock pot. Put this covered crock pot on medium low fire and bring to a boil.

5. immediately turn on to low fire and bring to simmer at 80 degree celcius for about 3.5 hours or until fork tender.

6. no need to stir constantly, the onion slices and beef scraps will take the abuse from the fire. Stir occasionally to ensure the surface is covered with the curry.

7. observe for breaking down of beef fats from solid to liquid, in the form of red liquid floating on the surface of the curry. skim the fat off.

8. serve

to save on the washing, serve curried rendang beef directly in the crock pot.

Guests are too hungry and requires too much of the attention from yours truly, hence did not get a chance to take picture of the final rendang beef. same goes to eating of the rendang beef, it was gone before yours truly get a chance to lay a fork on it. well, the beef scraps are there for a reason.

The picture of the rendang beef served with rice was taken some time back, it is done using the sous vide method. The final glorious orangy-brown hue of the rendangs look the same for both method.