Monday, August 23, 2010

Daging Berempah, Spiced Beef Stew "Malaysian Monday 9"



It is the time of the week again and today I am very excited to share with you a very interesting and delicious beef stew. What caught my attention initially was the ingredients used in the recipe; no onion and garlic in a Malay recipe? and it reads like a Chinese red cooked beef with the additional Malay spices and Indian herbs, one simply has to try it! This is adopted from part of a collection of Malay recipes by Melbourne food writer Tony Tan in a very old issue of Australian Gourmet Traveller. The magazine mysteriously gone missing when I was about to cook the dish, so this is something I recreated using roughly the same ingredients. I cooked this twice in a week and I will let you figure out why. This is the last week before our 2nd roundup of Muhibbah Malaysian Monday, so send in all your entries to me @ sureshchong@yahoo.com by the end of the week. 
P.S Chicken will work beautifully in this dish; simply coat chicken pieces with some salt and turmeric powder then fry til golden before continuing. Reduce the cooking time  of course.



serves 4 as part of a Malaysian meal
you'll need;
1 kg of gravy beef/chuck steak, cut across the grains into 1.5 cm slices
3 tbs of cooking oil
1 stalk of curry leaves
3 tbs of dark soy
2 tbs of kecap manis
2 tbs of sugar
2/3 cup of tamarind concentrate
3 to 5 dried chillies
stock or water
1 red chili, finely diced (garnish)

for the spice mix;
1 tbs of cumin seeds
1 tbs of fennel seeds
1 tbs of black peppercorns
10 cloves
2 star anise
3 cm piece of cinnamon
1 stalk of curry leaves



Beef and instant tamarind concentrate.



Prepare the spice mix.



Fry spice mic in a heavy bottom pot for 30 seconds on medium heat then add in the curry leaves.



Immediately add in the beef and coat the beef well in the spice mixture. Add in a few whole dried chillies for the extra background kick. Fry the beef for 5 minutes.



Next add seasonings, tamarind and enough water or stock to submerge the beef. Cover and simmer for 1.5 - 2 hours.



Uncover the pot in the last 10 minutes of the cooking time to reduce the sauce a little.



Sprinkle with some diced chillies and serve with plenty of steamed rice.



I cooked this twice in a week and that is how delicious it is!



If you have eaten or cooked any Malaysian meal recently, please join us and share with us your recipes and experience. All you need to do is grab the batch above and place it at the end of your post, linking it back to us of course. Since I am hosting the event this month, send me an email for the link to your post :)  Click HERE to find out more.

38 comments:

  1. boleh cuba versi tummy ni :)sebelum ramadhan makcik masak resepi seperti ini(lebih kurang)nampak yummy :)

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  2. Looks very delicious! I can see why you cooked this dish twice in a week :)

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  3. Hi tummy!!! weekend bz sikit tak sempat nak blogwalking, skrg ni dah jalan2 carik menu nak buat buka :D sya suke daging masak mcm ni lagiiiii saya suka ehehehe.... leh try ur version ;-)

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  4. Harriet from CarltonAugust 23, 2010 at 12:29 PM

    This is perfect winter dish! Looks divine!

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  5. What's not to like about a stew like this! Might try the chicken version tonight!

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  6. This is really interesting, you're a great cook!

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  7. Looks delicious and not too spicy too :) Must try it with chicken.

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  8. wor, this sound delicious, best to serve with steamed rice.

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  9. No onion and garlic. I somehow feel like I need to add it! Just a habit but the dish does look good without it.

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  10. This looks so delicious and easy to prepare too :) Love it!

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  11. Another mouthwatering recipe from you! Looks awesome.

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  12. The beef looks delicious my friend!

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  13. Wow that is a great looking stew. I might have to double the amount!

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  14. that must be scrumptious I love the star anise taste and with the meat that must be something !! Pierre

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  15. I do enjoy logging on to your blog,another dish that looks delicious, will definitely give it a try this weekend.Terima kaseh.

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  16. 還好可用雞肉 :) 看了好開胃唷。

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  17. saya suka dagingg...lebih2 lagi masak macam nih! saya sukaa.. nanti nak cubalah..thanx tummy.

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  18. Beautiful beef dish. Love all the rempah. Need more rice with this.

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  19. Salam kenal Tummy, waaah enak2nya resepi kat sini..boleh la nnt bertukar cita rasa kan..Nnt akak kena selalu masuk sini, nice blog, nice recipes!

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  20. I wonder if I could replicate this with mutton/lamb... should taste just as delicate .... hmMmm

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  21. I can smell the spices in this lovely stew! I would love to try this dish. Looks delicious!!

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  22. Ha! I think I had come across this recipe too and cut it out, hopefully it's somewhere where I can find :) Looks very moreish, definitely understand the twice in the same week effort ;P

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  23. Wow, just can't help drooling! Can smell it too!

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  24. Looks like a really great dish without the recipe at the end buddy! Double the quantity is a very good idea!

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  25. Love to try this with chicken, looks yummy!

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  26. I love stew! This looks wonderful!

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  27. Whoaaaaaaa.. i can almost smell the spices!!! I bet this stew tastes fantabulous!!

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  28. Gee I just stumble upon this event via Nate & Annie's blog!!!! I'm glad that it wont be too late in taking part as there are many Mondays around!

    Since I gather you guys are Malaysian... I'm running an annual event on Merdeka Day called Merdeka Open House. Please check out here for the details http://babeinthecitykl.blogspot.com/2010/08/merdeka-open-house-2010-announcing.html

    Thanks and I really do hope you guys can take part. Sorry for the short notice :p

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  29. A very unique blend of spices in this delicious beef stew!

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  30. What a delicious beef! Love the photos, especially the #1 pic too!

    B xx

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  31. Wow, this sounds absolutely amazing! I have to try this!

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  32. Thanks for sharing this delicious looking stew. I would like to try out the recipe but hv a few questions. What do you mean by prepare beef with the instant tamarind? The 2/3 cup tamarind in your recipe is it refering to 2/3 tamarind juice or paste.Thanks for yr advice.

    Regards,
    purplegirl

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  33. Thank you for all your wonderful comments! :)

    Purple girl,
    sorry that was a mistyped, it should be beef and tamarind concentrate.
    2/3 cup of the instant concentrate as pictured. you should be able to find that at any good asian grocers. I hope it is clearer now :)

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  34. Thanks so much for your speedy reply. Yes, am able to buy instant tamarind paste here. Sorry as I hv one more question - do you pound the curry leaves with the spice mix as listed in your ingredients for spice mix? I can ´smell´ the fragrance of this stew as I´m typing out this msg to you :)

    Regards,
    purplegirl

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  35. purple girl,
    altogether you need 2 stalks of curry leaves, one for the spice mix and there other just throw in when you are frying the pounded spice mix. Please let me know how it turns out :)

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  36. I made it! It was yummy.

    I did add onion and I used honey instead of sugar.

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