beef rendang
When Jamie started banging on about using brisket to save money, I didn’t need any convincing. I’ve been a fan of this largely ignored beef cut for years; I’ve got 5 or 6 recipes around here somewhere including the mighty cholent, a very popular dinner in this house.
I bought a lovely 2.5kg piece for £19, divided it up and froze half. I roasted the other half to serve 4 people generously and still had four portions left. Two of them ended up in this beef rendang. I don’t often get out to a Thai restaurant but this is my go-to order. It’s a thick, rich and deeply coconutty curry with a low, slow-burning heat.
And this recipe is a blinding version of beef rendang. As with every single Jamie recipe in existence I’ve dialled the heat right down but it still packs a spicy punch that really delivers. This one is going on regular rotation in my house.
Based on a recipe from Save with Jamie
Beef rendang (serves 2):
250g shredded brisket (any cooked beef will do, or you could fry some strips of steak instead)
½ teaspoon turmeric
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
300ml coconut milk
200ml beef stock
1 lime
Flatbreads or tortillas, coriander leaves and more lime wedges on the side
Coconut rice to serve
For the paste:
1 red onion
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger
2 cloves of garlic
1 bunch of fresh coriander
- Blitz the paste ingredients together with the coriander stalks in a food processor with some salt. Add some oil to a pan and fry this paste off for about 15 minutes.
- Add the beef, stock and coconut and bring to the boil. Simmer for another 15 minutes, grate in the lime zest and add lime juice to taste. Season and serve with rice, flatbreads, coriander leaves and rice.
There’s a place up in Easington called the Terrace Kitchen we went to recently. The guy who runs quit his job as a plumber to follow his dream running a decent food place. It’s still developing but has wonderful promise.
I mention this because the brisket sandwich he does there is absolutely magnificent, and it opened my eyes to the joys of a cut which I always overlook as well.
I’m mostly restricted to shopping at supermarkets and so can’t often get a to a local butchers for the joys of flatribs,and decent oxtail (and I can rarely afford Booths prices) so I’m 100% with you, brisket might be getting a lot more attention in our household too.
But would deviating from Jamie’s recipe and giving this some slow cooker treatment get even better results?
I’ve loved brisket for years. Check out that cholent recipe I linked to above, it’s an amazing slow cooker recipe.
I would be interested in trying a slow cooker rendang. I guess that this weekend sorted…
Both Tesco’s and Morrisons do brisket, but I recommend Makro if you have one near you and you can shop there. I picked up a whopping 4.5kg pork shoulder for £16 this week.