Cooking and Baking Laboratory

October 27, 2008

Rendang (Beef in Chili and Coconut Milk)

Rendang is an Indonesian beef stew dish with coconut milk and very complicated spices. I make it simpler and easier. Actually, this recipe below is adapted from my mother recipe. So that, my Rendang (I am sure) is different than Rendang from Padang (A city in West Sumatera- Indonesia where Minangkabau community come from, which has the origin of this recipe). Rendang (as I wrote before) usually serve with ketupat and other dishes in Hari Raya (Iedul Fitri Celebration Day). However, if you just eat it with warm cooked rice it would be very nice too.

Ingredients:

1 kg beef, sliced into 10-15 chunk, in the same direction with its fiber
3 jeruk purut leaves
1 lemongrass, crushed
2 salam leaves
500 ml thick coconut milk from 4 coconuts
2 turmeric leaves (my mother used it, but I didn’t)
5 ml cooking oil (I replaced it with olive oil)

Ground Spices:

10 chilies, or as necessary (depend on you like hot or not)
4 cloves of garlic
7 shallots
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 pieces galangal root (2 cm per piece)
2 pieces ginger (2 cm per piece)
1 tablespoon salt, or as what you think necessary
1 teaspoon white sugar, or as what you think necessary
1 tablespoon palm sugar, or as what you think necessary

Instructions:

Grind all spices in Ground Spices above with stone mortar or processor
Set the heat in medium
Sauté the ground spices with cooking oil, add lemongrass, salam leaves, jeruk purut leaves, and turmeric leaves if you use it. Sauté them together until it is fragrant
Then, add the beef, sauté until the red color of beef turns into brown
Set the heat in low
Add the coconut milk, stir well
Boil about 1 hour or until the beef are mild enough or turn into dark brown color
Don’t forget to stir it well occasionally
If it runs dry meanwhile the beef are still hard to chew (use fork to make sure), you can just add the boiled water into it and do the same process again

Refrigerate it, if you want to keep this dish for any longer use for 1 week or more. When you need to serve a meal, you can simply warm it.

October 5, 2008

Ketupat (Cooked Rice in Woven Coconut Leaves Pouch)

Ketupat is the most favorite food in festive occasions such as Idul Fitri (the day right after a month of Ramadhan fasting) In Indonesia.

Javanese people believe that ketupat is one of Sunan Kalijaga’s Islamic preaching medium. Remembering about telupat (similar sound with ketupat) telu ( third) and papat (fourth) in 5 Pillars of Islam, paying zakat and Ramadhan fasting. If you do your fasting well and also paying your zakat you will get the light, a holy light. Light in Arabic means nur (light) so Javanese choose jaNUR (young yellow coconut leaves) to make this ketupat pouch. I got this information from this site, Prof. DR. Damardjati Soepadjar said about philosophy of ketupat. He is a tremendous philosopher from Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta.

Hmm..okay let’s talking about making this food. Ketupat sometimes are boiled in thin coconut milk and spices to enhance the taste, but this time I’d rather make the plain one.

Ingredients:

5 ketupat pouches
A cup of rice, washed
A teaspoon of salt

Instructions:

Boil the water

Fill the rice into ketupat pouch . Add the rice until a half of the entire ketupat’s volume
Add salt to the boiled water
Put the ketupat in the pan with the boiled water. Set them all under water
Keep boil them with medium heat for about 2 hours or until the rice become densely tight and the yellow turn into brown coconut leaves
Keep watching the water level. Pour hot water into the pan if the water level becomes lower
Take ketupat out of water, drain and hang them
Slice the ketupat, and serve it with various dishes
In Lebaran day or Hari Raya Iedul Fitri, Indonesian people usually combine it with Opor Ayam (Chicken in Coconut Gravy) and Sambal Goreng Hati (Beef Liver in Chili and Coconut Milk), Rendang and Sate(Satay).

Related Link:

If you want to know how to weave ketupat from coconut leaves you can go here

Soto Ayam Magetan (Magetan Chicken Soup)

My grandmother who lived in East slope side of Mount Lawu, used to cooked this kind of Soto when Lebaran Idul Fitri to serve her hundreds of guesses. She wasn't living in Magetan, but her Soto was very similar to what Seri MAsak Femina said about this kind of Soto.

So, it doesn’t matter at all what its name actually. I just want to remember my beloved deceased grandmother’s soto, which was so yummy.

This dishes is inspired by my grandmother’s recipe, combine with Seri Masak Femina

Ingredients:

1 free range chicken/ organic chicken, cleaned and cut into frying pieces
1,5 L fresh water
1 teaspoon of salt
2 tablespoons cooking oil
2 salam leaves
2 lemon grasses
4 jeruk purut leaves
¼ teaspoon cinnamon powder
2 cm galangal root, crushed

Spices to Grind:

3 cloves garlic
8 shallots
2 cm ginger
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
5 candle nuts
½ teaspoon white pepper powder
A pinch of caraway powder
½ teaspoon tamarind
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar

Complements:

50 g rice vermicelli, boiled for 2 minutes, then poured by cold water, drained
150 g bean sprouts, soaked in hot water, then drained
3 hard boiled eggs, peeled, sliced
100 g cabbage, finely sliced
2 tablespoon celery
2 tablespoon fried onion
Potato crisp
Chili condiment
Sweet soy sauce
Lime juice

Instructions:

Grind all spices in Spices to Grind above with stone mortar or processor

Boil the chicken with salt in water, until the chicken is tender enough, and the broth is about 1000 ml
Take the chicken out of pan and drain it well, shred it

Sauté the ground spices with salam leaves, lemon grasses, jeruk purut leaves, galangal root, cinnamon powder
Pour the chicken broth little by little, stir, boil it again

Set the shredded chicken and all the compliments in a bowl, and then pour them with hot spiced broth