Around this time last year, on those days when wedding planning became just a little too overwhelming, Nathan and I would throw aside our spreadsheets and daydream about our honeymoon instead. Narrowing down our options to a shortlist of destinations turned out to be surprisingly easy since it just so happened that at the top of both of our respective “Places to Travel Next” lists were Spain and southeast Asia. Clearly, we are meant for each other, no? ^_^
Deciding between the two places, however, proved much more difficult.
We consulted friends every chance we got. One of the guys at our favorite sushi spot in the city argued adamantly that we simply must go to Spain, and in particular, Barcelona. A few years ago, he had planned a trip all around Spain starting at Barcelona. Two days after arriving, he tore up his original itinerary and spent the entire vacation in Barcelona. How can we argue with that? Spain, here we come!
Until, that is, we met a couple of family friends for brunch. In the great “Where should Nathan and Angi go for honeymoon” debate of 2009, they were solidly in the opposing camp. As they described the food they ate on their trips to southeast Asia, I had to stop myself from suggesting that we abandoned our eggs benedict and waffles to find some rendang…stat!
In the end, we resorted to pure logistics. With most of my family in Hong Kong, we foresee many trips to Asia in our future and it would be quite easy to take side trips to southeast Asia then. So with that… Vamonos a España!
Just because we haven’t made it to southeast Asia in person yet doesn’t mean we cannot make our apartment smell almost like a kitchen in Indonesia. After some quality time on the internet (mostly by Nathan, who also did pretty much all the cooking for this – lucky me!), we’re armed with a bunch of rendang recipes for inspiration. Rendang originated in Indonesia but has spread to Malaysia and Singapore. It uses many of the same ingredients as a normal curry but the end result is something much drier than a curry, so that the meat is coated in a thick, super flavorful spice crust.
The idea is to make a spice paste with coconut milk, simmer the whole thing until all the water evaporates from the sauce, and let the meat fry in the leftover oil. More often than not, rendang is made with beef. But once you see this photo over on Serious Eats, I hope you will agree that we made the right choice in opting for chicken this time around.
Adapted from this recipe from Serious Eats. Tamarind concentrate and kaffir lime leaves are available at Asian and Indian markets. We usually buy the Maeploy or Chaokoh brands of coconut milk (also at Asian markets), which separate into a cream layer on top and clear liquid below as long as you don’t shake it up. If your coconut milk is not separated, just ignore the part about adding the cream and the clear liquid separately.
25 May 2010 at 8:37 am
This looks great—good job, Nathan! Ming @ LimeTree makes a beef rendang that’s one of our faves, and it’s wet. I actually had no idea that it was supposed to be a dry curry, but it’s an intriguing concept. I do think that beef is OTT rich, so chicken is a good call.
I’m actually tempted to make this with pork shoulder. That would also be rich, but perhaps not as heavy tasting as the beef.
25 May 2010 at 8:44 am
Thanks Ben!
oo, I like the pork shoulder idea a lot – in my mind, I’m imagining and “Indonesian carnitas” especially since you end up frying the meat in oil at the end, except in this case, it happens all right in the pan! I bet in addition to rice, it would be awesome eaten with roti pratha.
27 May 2010 at 8:01 pm
I know there’s a chicken redang version out there but haven’t seen it! This looks amazing and I think I’ll like it better than the traditional beef one!
27 May 2010 at 8:19 pm
Hi Anh,
Thanks for dropping in! You should definitely give this version a try – we polished the whole thing much quicker than we should have. ^_^
I’m planning to try beef rendang sometime too, but it’ll be hard to resist making chicken rendang again.
angi
28 May 2010 at 3:43 am
Hi, this is the first time visiting your blog. We eat rendang very often in my home country Malaysia. Sometime we cook it with beef too. Hope you can visit Malaysia sometime and I am pretty sure you are going to enjoy the wide range of food there.
28 May 2010 at 7:08 am
Hi Gertrude,
Thanks for visiting! I would love love love to visit Malaysia soon because I know I will love all the food there. ^_^ Malaysia is definitely on my list of places to visit next!
Thanks!
angi
4 Jul 2010 at 2:12 pm
I just posted a recipe of rendang. I tried to make as authentic as I could, thou I live far away from Indonesia. At the Asian markets, rendang instant mix spices are sold, but they still taste different when we make it from scratch.
Originally, this recipe calls for asam kandis (a kind of dried fruit that is giving sour flavour, a family of mangosteen). But, in Java island where asam kandis is not very popular, people substitute for tamarind.
I have planted turmeric to get the leaves for making authentic rendang too :)