I visited Sabah while on a press trip hosted by Sabah Tourism and Royal Brunei Airlines simply every bit always, my thoughts remain my own. This mail service may contain affiliate links and if you make a buy using these links, I'll receive a small commission fee at no actress cost to you.

Packed with flaky, fall-autonomously beef cooked in creamy coconut milk with fragrant lemongrass, kaffir lime, galangal, ginger and a myriad of spices, this traditional Malaysian tedious cooker beef rendang tin can be left to bubble away in the kitchen while you get on with your day!

Malaysian slow cooker beef rendang

Contents

  • ane Beef rendang: an introduction
  • two How to make beef rendang in a slow cooker
    • 2.i Step-by-step guide
  • 3 What to serve with boring cooker beef rendang
  • four How to store beef rendang
  • 5 Ho-hum Cooker Beefiness Rendang
    • 5.1 Equipment
    • v.2 Ingredients
      • v.2.1 For the spice paste
      • 5.ii.two For the back-scratch
    • 5.iii Instructions
    • 5.4 Notes
    • 5.5 Nutrition

Beefiness rendang: an introduction

Perchance ane of the most popular beef dishes in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, traditional beef rendang is a fragrant batter of fresh lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, ginger and chilli cooked in coconut milk with a variety of spices and a irksome-cooking cut of beef like chuck steak or shin. Occasionally, lamb or chicken may be used instead.

The origins of beefiness rendang lie in west Sumatra, Indonesia, where the Minang ethnic tribe melt this coconut-infused stew to welcome visitors and mark ceremonial occasions similar Hari Raya (the Muslim festival of Eid).

While near curries consist of chunks of meat and/or veg swimming in sauce, beefiness rendang is a dry out, somewhat stodgy back-scratch. Equally the spicy sauce reduces and browns in color, information technology transforms into a thick, flavoursome paste which embraces each tender chunk of beefiness. As the slow-cooked meat falls apart into tender flakes, this pungent paste clings to each shred and somewhen becomes dotted throughout the rice.

Slow cooker beef rendang in a serving dish
Loving the look of @TheRareWelshBit's Melt-in-your-mouth Malaysian Beef Rendang! #malaysianfood #slowcooking

This isn't the quickest dish to gear up and you'll probably need to put some legwork in to chase down some of the Asian ingredients. Effort your local Asian supermarkets if yous don't accept any joy at the supermarket. Time and ingredients aside, yet, beef rendang is fairly piece of cake to gear up. Although it takes longer to cook the beefiness in a slow cooker as opposed to on the hob, this method enables you to simply leave the rendang bubbling away in the kitchen while y'all get on with your solar day.

If you haven't got a slow cooker, you can follow this recipe in a big heavy-based pan with a lid on the hob, only reduce the cooking time to around 2-3 hours. You lot might need to add a little water (as slow cooking uses less liquid) and you'll need to spend more time slaving over the stove to stir the pot occasionally equally the stew simmers away. However, the reward of cooking beef rendang on the hob is that you don't have to bother with transferring the mixture to and from the dull-cooker to brown off the meat and reduce the sauce.

Slow cooker beef rendang close-up

However, I highly recommend investing in a slow cooker as they're extremely affordable and safe to use and in that location's nix better than arriving home to a hot, home-cooked meal with minimal effort at the terminate of a long, tiring 24-hour interval. I admittedly love my iii.5-litre retro Swan dull cooker, which has 3 heat settings and a removable ceramic pot. At the moment, it's selling for less than £30 on Amazon, so it'southward a groovy investment for your kitchen.

While there are many variations on beef rendang, with about families tweaking the recipe to arrange their own tastes, this item version was kindly shared with me by Head Chef, Teddy Ibau at Sukau Rainforest Lodge in Sabah, Malaysia – 1 of the National Geographic's highly-acclaimed Unique Lodges of the World.

I stayed at Sukau Rainforest Gild while on a printing trip with Sabah Tourism and Royal Brunei Airlines. Await more weblog posts about my time in Sabah over the next few weeks but in the concurrently, as we're all stuck at dwelling on lockdown, I thought this would be the perfect time to share Teddy's beef rendang recipe with y'all!

Sukau Rainforest Lodge on the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia
Sukau Rainforest Lodge is perched on the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia

Teddy began working at Sukau Rainforest Lodge in 2018 with over a decade of culinary experience under his belt, including a stint every bit Executive Chef at World Trade Hotel, Shanxi and various roles at v-star hotels including Shangri La in Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu.

Head Chef Teddy Ibau at Sukau Rainforest Lodge in Sabah, Malaysia
Head Chef, Teddy Ibau at Sukau Rainforest Lodge

How to make beefiness rendang in a slow cooker

Looking at the long list of ingredients required and the method involved in making beefiness rendang, it'southward easy to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of preparing this exotic dish 'from scratch' yourself at home.

One time you've prepared the ingredients and cleaved the method down into elementary, easy-to-follow steps, however, information technology's really quite difficult to get incorrect with beefiness rendang. What's more, by preparing information technology in the slow cooker, yous're eliminating the demand to stand over the hot stove for hours on end stirring the pot, freeing yourself upwards to get on with your twenty-four hour period while the rendang bubbles away in the tedious cooker.

Beef rendang spice paste
Beef rendang spice paste

Step-past-step guide

  1. Prep the spice paste by blitzing all the ingredients together in a food processor or blender.
  2. Melt the spice paste over a medium flame for around five minutes, toasting the spices to impart flavour. Once finished, the paste will take darkened slightly in colour.
  3. Side by side, add the raw meat to the pot and cook it for a farther five minutes, stirring regularly until browned all over.
  4. Remove the pot from the estrus and transfer the meat and spice mixture, plus all the other curry ingredients, into your ho-hum cooker. Place on 'auto' or 'high' (refer to the full recipe below for further details) and cook for around 6 hours, stirring very occasionally.
  5. Transfer the contents of the boring cooker dorsum into the pot and cook over a medium flame for effectually xxx minutes, until the sauce has reduced and the meat has browned in the backlog oil.
  6. Permit the beef rendang to absurd slightly (it'll be piping hot when it comes out of the deadening cooker!) and serve with sticky coconut-infused Jasmine rice.

One of the things I love nigh cooking beef rendang is witnessing the marvellous transformation in the colour of the sauce during the cooking procedure, right through from pale, creamy beige to deep, red-brownish. This change in colour is a by-production of the sauce reduction process. Equally the sauce bubbles away, the oil separates and the beef browns off in it until the flaky, fall-autonomously compact chunks become coated in a stodgy paste.

Ingredients for beef rendang sitting in the slow cooker.

What to serve with dull cooker beef rendang

As beef rendang is traditionally a dry curry, it pairs well with rice but as it doesn't have much sauce, it'south not the kind of curry you'd mop up with a chapati or naan bread. In Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore, the dish is usually served with viscous jasmine rice, rice cooked with coconut milk, almondy pandan leaves and spices, or vibrant turmeric rice.

With no pandan leaves to manus, I teamed my tiresome cooker beef rendang with basmati rice cooked in coconut milk with kaffir lime leaves, dusted with dessicated kokosnoot and topped with fresh coriander and a juicy lime wedge to serve. If you lot like, you could even prepare an Asian-inspired salad to accompany your beef rendang and kokosnoot rice; this rainbow vermicelli salad with soy certainly gets my vote!

Coconut rice garnished with kaffir lime leaves, fresh lime and coriander and served with slow cooker beef rendang.

Alternatively, if you lot're looking for a lighter accompaniment, consider some stir-fried greens with Malaysian kecap manis (thick soy sauce), garlic and chilli or a fresh, crunchy salad. I love the look of this cucumber and peanut salad I just stumbled across while browsing for inspiration.

Just looking at @TheRareWelshBit'due south tiresome-cooker Malaysian Beefiness Rendang is making me drool! Definitely need to make this old! #malaysianfood #slowcookerrecipes

How to store beef rendang

In the unlikely event that your family don't end up polishing off your beef rendang in 1 sitting, shop any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for two to three days or popular it in the freezer for up to around three months.

Overhead flatlay shot of slow cooker beef rendang

Slow Cooker Beef Rendang

Packed with flaky, fall-apart beefiness cooked in creamy kokosnoot milk with fragrant lemongrass, kaffir lime, galangal, ginger and a myriad of spices, this traditional Malaysian slow cooker beef rendang can exist left to bubble away in the kitchen while you get on with your mean solar day.

Traditionally, Malaysian beef rendang is a real labour of honey, wearisome-cooked over a depression to medium flame for several hours with occasional stirring. However, it's entirely possible to prepare this dish in a slow cooker, although you'll need to brown the meat and spice paste off on the hob get-go and reduce the sauce down afterwards. But go well-nigh your twenty-four hours and one time you get habitation from work or finish all your household chores, all you'll take to do is prepare your rice or chosen side dish and you'll accept a melt-in-your-oral cavity, aromatic beefiness rendang on the tabular array earlier you know it!

Grade Dinner, Main Class

Cuisine Indonesian, Malaysian, Slow cooking

Keyword beef, curry, rendang, slow cooker

Prep Time xv minutes

Cook Time half-dozen hours forty minutes

Servings 6 people

Calories 550 kcal

  • Wearisome cooker

For the spice paste

  • 10 fresh cherry-red chillies, finely sliced (with actress for garnishing)
  • 1 medium onion or 3-4 large shallots finely chopped
  • iv cloves garlic finely chopped or minced
  • 2 lemongrass stalks
  • 1.5" fresh galangal peeled and chopped
  • 1.5" fresh ginger peeled and finely chopped or minced
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil

For the curry

  • 1 kg slow-cooking beefiness (chuck steak or shin works particularly well) diced into 1.5" cubes
  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • one cinnamon stick
  • 4 cloves
  • 2 star anise
  • four cardamom pods seeds just
  • ane fresh lemongrass bottom-half but, bashed
  • 400 ml kokosnoot milk
  • 2 tsp tamarind puree, paste or pulp soaked in hot water, seeds removed
  • iv-vi kaffir lime leaves (dependent on size) finely shredded (with extra for garnishing)
  • v tbsp dessicated kokosnoot
  • 1 tbsp dark-brown sugar
  • 1½ tsp salt

  • Transfer the spice paste ingredients to a nutrient processor or blender and combine until finely chopped.

  • Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in a large, heavy pot over a low-to-medium heat and cook the spice paste for five minutes or and then, allowing the spices to 'bloom'; once complete, the paste should darken in color slightly.

  • Increment the heat slightly and add the cubed beef to the pan. Cook for a farther five minutes or so, until browned.

  • Remove the pan from the heat and add together the beef and spice paste to the slow cooker along with the remaining curry ingredients, stirring to combine. You might want to add a little h2o too, but be mindful that y'all don't need to utilize as much liquid when cooking in a deadening-cooker. Gear up the temperature on the dull cooker to auto or high, pop the lid on and let to bubble away for 6 hours. It's all-time to cook red meat on loftier when using a slow cooker only you'll probably need to requite information technology an occasional stir so if y'all'll be leaving the business firm, consider switching to car.

  • Once six hours has passed, the meat should exist incredibly tender, nonetheless not quite at that 'fall apart' stage yet. Turn off the tiresome cooker and carefully pour the contents back into the large pan we used before on. Simmer over a medium flame for around one-half an 60 minutes, until the sauce has reduced to a thick paste and the meat falls autonomously at the bear on of a fork. If necessary, keep adding more than water and reducing down until the meat is to your desired tenderness.

  • While beef rendang is a fairly spicy curry, the heat isn't as well over-powering as the boring cooking procedure tempers the spices. However, if y'all'd prefer a milder curry, remove the seeds from the chillies or use less chillies.
  • If fresh galangal or lemongrass aren't available, substitute with one tbsp each of paste. Galangal is tricker to find and then if you tin can't get any, use extra ginger instead.
  • When dicing the beefiness into cubes, aim for fairly large chunks; they'll reduce in size considerable during cooking and eventually they'll be literally falling apart, so you don't want them to be and then small that they cease up reducing to cipher.
  • Beef rendang can also be cooked on the hob in a large, heavy-based pot. But reduce the cooking time to around 2-iii hours and exist mindful that you'll need to hang around in the kitchen to stir the pot regularly.

Calories: 550 kcal

Have you always fabricated slow cooker beef rendang or are there any other dishes you lot enjoy preparing in a slow cooker? Share your thoughts with other readers in the comment box below.

Looking for recipe inspiration? Check out these other dishes earlier you head off:

  • Vegetarian Chilli
  • Puerto Rican Empanadas
  • Indian Masala Chai Tea
  • Bacon and Asparagus Tart
  • Greek Spetzofai
  • Venison Sausage Rolls
  • Beef rendang in a bowl with coconut rice and chopsticks
  • A photo of beef rendang with rice, garnished with kaffir lime leaves, fresh lime and coriander with sliced chillies.
  • A styled shot of Malaysian beef rendang with rice and chopsticks
  • A flatlay shot of beef rendang with coconut rice and chopsticks