Red Curry Paste
Now I know jarred red curry paste is sold just about everywhere, and I use it all the time, too; it’s simply easier, cheaper, and faster to keep a jar of it in your fridge. But sometimes, a person gets inspired. There’s a certain joy and sense of satisfaction in the manual labour of producing your own basics, like stock, mayonnaise, or cheese, that buying pre-made does not afford. Call me crazy, but spending an extra 30 minutes preparing this recipe is very enjoyable. Plus, there’s a few layers of flavour that the fresh ingredients provide that preserved pastes do not. Is it worth it? That’s up to you.
Rendang Daging
Rendang Daging
Historically, this beef dish originates in Western Sumatra, Indonesia with the Minangkabau ethnic group, and dates back at least 500 years in literature. Or that’s what I’ve gleaned from Wikipedia, anyway. My personal experience with the dish dates back to a lunch-time cafeteria in Singapore. I remember enjoying the dish, but otherwise have completely forgotten the flavour. Maybe that’s a good thing, since cheap cafeterias ordinarily don’t produce the greatest versions of things. Who knows?
Whatever it was, though, it impressed me enough to inspire an ongoing quest to make rendang (pronounced ren-dahng, daging is dah-ging) at home, here in Canada. I found some Indofoods rendang spice packets at Loblaws, so it is popular enough to infiltrate the Western marketplace in some form, but the resulting mess was sub-standard. Hell, most of those spice packets produce only a pale imitation of the real thing. For many Southeast Asian foods, you need fresh ingredients. Lemongrass, ginger, shallots, garlic, and so on. Which means I needed a real recipe. For rendang, specifically, you need all of those aromatics and spices, plus one more crucial ingredient: infinite patience.
No More Microwaves 