Beef Rendang

By WisconsinMike

Indonesian dish good over rice or serve with French bread

Ingredients

• 5 whole cloves
• 1 whole nutmeg, slightly crushed with a mortar and pestle
• 6-8 red Holland chiles or 3-4 Thai chiles, stemmed and roughly chopped.
• 6 small shallots, roughly chopped
• 5 macadamia nuts
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled
• 1-1/2 t. ground tumeric
• 1 2 inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely sliced
• 1 2 inch piece galangal, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 lbs. boneless beef chuck, cut into 2 inch pieces
• 7 fresh or frozen Kaffir lime leaves, plus 4 very thinly sliced, for garnish
• 3 stalks lemon grass, trimmed, smashed with a mallet, and tied in to knots
• 2 sticks cinnamon
• 2 1/2 C unsweetened coconut milk
• Kosher salt to taste

Preparation

Step 1

Pulse cloves and nutmeg in a food processor until very fine. Add chiles, shallots, nuts, garlic, tumeric, ginger, and galangal; puree until a slightly smooth paste forms, about 2 minutes. Transfer paste to a 12 inch non-skick skillet with beef; using your hands, mix together. Add 7 lime leaves, lemon gress knots, cinnamon, coconut milk, and salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook, stirring occasionally to prevent coconut milk from scortching, until the consistency of thick pea soup, about 1.5 hours. Continue to cook, stirring frequently to prevent burning, until the beef turns a dark caramel color and the sauce coats the beef, 2.5-3 hours. Discard the whole spices before serving; garnish with the thinly sliced lime leaves.