Hubby birthday lunch

Hubby's birthday was a few weeks ago, to mark the special day I had made hubby's favourite food for lunch which is Rendang Beef and Nasi Minyak (it is fragrant rice cooked with tumeric and ghee with spices).  The thing with being Asian is that I don't really measured what I chuck into the pan to cook; thereby this is roughly the measurement of my recipes ( with asian recipes is depend on how the strength of the taste you would like it ot be, like for exampple if you wanted it to have more heat add more chillis or peppercorns etc). Theae recipes are what I had tweaked from my family recipes and suited it to the taste of my family so it might be diffrent from the other rendang or nasi minyak that you might had found in the various recipe sites.

Nasi Minyak (Fragrant Rice)

Ingredients:

2 cups of washed and drained Thai Fragrant Rice (its an Asian short grain rice - easily found in any local Asian/Oriental Supermarket)

1 Medium sized White Onion (diced)

2 cloved of garlic (diced)

5 tablespoon of Ghee

5cm Cinnamon Stick

2 Star Anise

5 Cardamons

5-7 peppercorns (Dont grind them - just add it as it is)

2 teaspoon of tumeric powder

Salt and Sugar to taste

Directions:

Add ghee to your heated pan. Once your ghee has liquidfied add in the dice onion, garlic, cinnamon, aniseed and cardamon. Sauted until its fragrant (do be carful with the garlic so that it wont be burned - as burnt garlic will give a bitter aftertaste). Once fragrant add in the rice and slowly stirred it untill fully incorporated. Once incorporated, turned off the heat and transfer the rice into a rice cooker. Add an equal amount of water into the rice cooker (if you are cooking 2 cups of rice I always do add and equal amount of 2 cups of water or like my grandmother taught me measure your water with your finger), add in the tumeric powder, the pepper seeds and salt&sugar to taste. Stir and let your automatic rice cooker magically do the work. 

Rendang Daging (Beef Rendang)

Ingredients:

Roughly I had around 300-400gms of beef - Sliced it in cubes

Vegetable oil

Kaffir leaves (lime leaves)

5cm of Cinnamon

2 Star anise

5 Cardamons

(5 cm of fresh tumeric, 10 shallots, 5 cloves of garlic, 3 chillies (if you wanted a milder version you can add just one chilli), 1 lemongrass, 2 teaspoons of curry powder : all of these placed in a food processor until it form a paste)

1 tin (around 250 ml of Coconut milk)

2 tablespopon of kerisik (toasted dessicated coconut - nowadays you can find kerisik in the local oriental supermarket)

2-3 teaspoons of grated gula melaka (if you can't found a gula melaka you can substitute it with muscavado sugar)

Salt to taste

Direction:

Heat your pan (medium heat) and add in the vegetable oil, saute your paste, cinnamon, star anise & cadamons, stirred it always so that the paste would not be burnt or else it wouold be very bitter. When you found that the vegetable oil had split from your paste you would know that you are ready to put in your diced beef, stirred the beef until fully incorporated. Add in the kaffir leaves and your coconut milk. Cooked it slowly until it is reduced ( it is quite a long process  - it takes around 45 mintures to an hour on medium heat and stirred occasionally - that is why i prefer to used a non stick pot) As rendang is done in stages, you initially boiling or simmering it until the sauce thicken, then continue to cook it until the sauce dried up and it seems to be stir frying the beef. Add in the gula melaka and salt to taste.

Sambal Kacang (Savoury Peanuts & Anchovies)

Back home in Brunei we love to eat peanuts and anchovies cooked with savoury sticky sauce - its a combination of chillies, sugar and honey, trust me it is very tasty and you couldn't put the bowl down till it finishes.

Sambal Kacang (Savoury Paanuts & Anchovies)

Ingredients:

Red peanuts ( I prefer this type as it have a sweeter and nutty taste that I love)

Dried Anchovies (there are many kinds of anchovies sold at any oriental shop; I preferred the medium size ones)

Vegetable oil

 

Shallots (thinly sliced)

Garlic (thinly sliced)

Dried chilli paste

White Sugar

Salt to taste (Add salt sparingly as the anchovies are already salty)

 

Direction:

1. Fry your red peanuts and anchovies separately using the Vegetable oil. Set aside to cool.
2. On a new pan add few tablespoon of the used oil to fry the shallot and garlic until they are golden brown (make use you don't burn the garlic or else it will left a bitter aftertaste)
3. Add in your chilli paste (you can make your own chilli paste by boiling dried chillies with water and salt; then drain in the excess water left to cool; then blender the boiled chillies into a paste) until combines
4. Add in your sugar, stirred until the sugar melted. Once melted turn of your heat and pur your peanuts and anchovies. Stir untill well combined. Enjoy xx