Healthy Beef Rendang

Fragrant beef rendang made from scratch, perfect for lunch or dinner and will taste even better the next day! This curry recipe is gluten free.
Prep Time 5 mins
Cooking Time 3 hours
Healthy Beef Rendang

Ingredients

Servings
4

Spice Paste

Instructions

Make spice paste

  1. Chuck lemongrass stalks, ginger, fresh chillies, a whole med onion, garlic cloves and kaffir lime leaves into a food processor. Process it for a couple of minutes until it turn into a paste.
  2. You can add more chillis or less chillis depending on your spice tolerance. You can also add a tbsp of oil to the paste.

Make beef curry

  1. Heat up your pot with 2 tbsp of your preferred oil. Add spice paste and fry it on medium heat for about a min until it's fragrant.
  2. Add beef into the pot and fry it until it turns brown on the outside.
  3. Add the remaining ingredients and stir well. Simmer it over low-medium heat.
  4. Now close the lid and simmer for 2 hours on low heat. Check occasionally to make sure it is not drying up. Add water or vegetable stock if you need to.
  5. Add more salt or sweetener to your liking, and enjoy with rice, sambal chilli, crispy anchovies and vegetables!

Notes

  • I used 1kg (2.2 lbs) of top ribs and 500g (1.1 lbs) of chuck steak for this recipe as top ribs are mostly bones. This part of the meat is extremely tender and delicious.
  • You can always replace some whole spices with their powdered form, or omit them completely. I didn't use star anise on occasions and it still tastes just as good.
  • Feel free to omit toasted coconut if you want to lower fat content in the dish.
  • If you don't have fresh chillies, you could use dried chillies or chilli flakes. Adjust the spiciness based on your preference.
  • If you have galangal at home, feel free to use it. Instead of 3 tbsp of ginger, you could use 1.5 tbsp of galangal and 1.5 tbsp of ginger. It may be difficult to get galangal in some countries, and I normally omit them in my recipe.
  • This is best cooked in a deep cast iron pot. Cook on low heat for 3-4 hours so that the meat is tender. You can cook it for 2 hours if you're getting impatient. It will still be good but meat will be a little less tender.
  • This goes really well with a good sambal with rice, cucumber slices and crispy anchovies.