Malaysian Beef Rendang

I am originally from Brunei, which is close to Malaysia. The recipe is missing tumeric powder; it is a special occasion dish, which tastes better by the 2nd or 3rd day. Also, blanched almonds with the shredded coconuts helps with buildling the sauce. A tip on making Beef Rendang is to use a mortar and pestle to grind the spices, if you could find one. It takes longer to use mortar & pestle, but you can taste the difference when you use a food processor. Also, palm sugar is preferred to white sugar. Otherwise, the recipe is quite authentic. :)

This a great Rendang recipe. Very very easy to use. Don't skimp on the lemon grass as that is where the zing comes from. I omitted the nutmeg as I did not have any. Another trick is to make it in a pot and close the lid to let the meat tenderise for about 30 mins and then start evaporating the liquid. Perfection!

The flavor and especially the smell of this dish is very attractive. I found that my stew beef didn't get tender enough in the wok, so I used a pressure cooker to finish it off. Next time I'll skip the wok entirely.

After one hour trawling the Internet for a good Asian beef recipe I found this – an attractive recipe with all ingredients all obtainable in a local supermarket – no obscure spice or vegetable taking hours to find. My partner is Malaysian and food critical. Attempting Rendang was a risky being universally known as difficult to achieve authentic results. I used real cocoanuts, smashing them and then grating the white flesh, remembering once being told that the secret of Rendang lies in the cocoanut. There is definitely a balance to be reached on cooking times. I had all the right weights and timings. Things seemed fine 15 minutes into the “simmer” then 15 minutes later the liquid had dramatically vanished – even just starting to stick and burn. Yes, it was a low heat. Further, the meat didn’t seem that tender. Panic I decided to put scrape the whole thing into a pan with a closed lid and added more water and give it another 20 minutes. The final result, very good, everyone liked it. The taste was really close to the “real thing” – but I was advised that the meat should actually be quite hard and have the coconut sticking to it. That’s the art and challenge I believe. Once that I am sure this recipe is capable of delivering with practice and care on liquids Vs Cooking times. I am going to stick with the Wok as I am sure they wouldn’t put a Rendang in a pressure cooker, useful though they are.

Paired this recipe with Spiced Basmati Rice by McCormick - a truly fabulous taste combination. My only recommendation is that you use a tender cut of beef or increase the water amount and cook for up to 3 hours to prevent the meat from being chewy.

I give it 5 stars, because although I didn't do a great job with it, I know it has potential. This was my favorite dish at a certain restaurant, and this recipe is a pretty faithful reproduction of it. I recommend less coconut (I used 1.5 cups, and that's pretty generous), and make sure you don't overcook the coconut...it will be crunchy in the final product if you do. Also make sure you take it off the burner when it still has plenty of liquid...the sauce pairs excellently with the white rice.

This dish needs constant stirring or it'll get burnt at the bottom of the pot. I find it a bit too dry so had to add a little more water to it. Overall, it tastes good.

My husband (the picky eater) thought it tasted "weird" but I loved it. My grocery store carries tubes of pureed lemon grass, ginger, and garlic where the fresh herbs are located. But I didn't get the right chile peppers so it wasn't as spicy as it could have been. Will definately make again...he can have PB&J. ;-)

Great flavor with a BITE!

I omitted the cloves and the grated coconut, as it was unavailable at the time but this is an incredible recipe, very delicious and authenticly asian taste - my husband loves it.

We really loved this. I followed this recipe as written except I made mine in a stockpot rather than the wok, which I think helped to cook it more evenly and keep it from sticking or burning. Loved the coconut and spices - will definitely make this again. Thanks!

This is an awesome recipe, above restaurant standard if you go the extra mile. I took Kim’s advice and added a tea spoon of Turmeric and ground all the ingredients using a mortar & pestle. I used large chunks (1” cubes) of lightly marinated porterhouse and pressure cooked for about an hour. The meat was incredibly tender and melted in your mouth. The taste was amazing. Bloody bagus food.

This dish had and excellent flavor profile even with the heavy amount of spices. I was concerned about the 15 peppers so I reduced it to 7 and removed the seeds from the pods. The heat level was below what I expected, the next time I will use the suggested amount. I would like a little more contrasting texture, I may use peanuts, pecans or cashews next time. Also I would like a little more color, red peppers with their low acidity and broccoli added late in the cooking should brighten the dish without affecting the overall flavor curve.

Beef Rendang? More like Beef Rendon't. I made this recipe thinking it was similar to a dish at our favorite Malaysian restaurant but I got it wrong and did not like this dish at all. I spent the majority of the day gathering ingredients from a specialty store and then I painstakingly followed the directions of making the paste etc. What I ended up with was this fibrous strange dish with a weird taste and tons of leftovers that I don't want to eat. For me this recipe was not worth the time or effort.

Made this for the first time several years ago for my friend who requested it-said it was his favorite Malaysian dish he'd had in NYC. He said that after trying this version-he could never return to the "mediocre" restaurants who attempt to serve it. The beef falls apart in your mouth, and now I make it for friends, boyfriend, family-everyone LOVES it. The only thing I do differently is that I cook it in a heavy bottom pot, instead of the wok, less stirring required and less burning on the bottom of the pan!

Rendang is Indonesian not Malaysian. It comes from Padang in Sumatra.

Rendang is my favorite dish, I loved this recipe particularly- it adds more spices to the beef.

This was just ok. I had a lot of problems getting the shallot-garlic-lemongrass-ginger paste to come together into a paste, eventually having to add water to the blender and work in batches to get it to break down properly. It tasted ok, but the pepper and the coconut kind of overpowered and the meat didn't get very tender. I've never had Rendang before, so I don't know if that's how it's supposed to taste or not, but maybe it just wasn't for us.

if you want to add some zest to it.... add lemon zest to the mixture when cooking. then squeeze some very fresh oranges into the sauce when it's about 3 quarters cooked. it gives it a lovely zing.

Love the recipe! I have cooked it twice and my husband luvs it. It taste like the beef rendang from Penang.... Thank you for submitting this recipe Trevor

This is one of the easiest recipes that I have ever done. It is a very juicy, and is one of those recipes that you can just pull apart with your fork. I am amazed about how easy it is. That is what you will say as well, is THAT SMELLS AMAZING, AND THAT IS SO TENDER.

Learned to love Beef Rendang in Singapore - and this recipe is very close.

Good recipes, it have to be cook for more than 2-3 hour on low..i dont have shredded coconut, so i used dry unsweetned coconut flake and toasted in the pan till brown then i put it in blender with extra coconut oil to blend them till it look like coconut paste.. give this a recipe a try..

I've tried a few different rendang recipes, trying to find one that's a "keeper". This recipe is pretty good - it's a bit different to recipes I've found on south east asian blogs, but it still tastes nice. My tip would be to use kecap manis instead of sugar - it gives it the sweetness as well as depth of colour. I am not convinced about the fennel (first I have seen it in a rendang recipe), but to be honest I couldn't taste it anyway. Also, personally I am not a fan of the "crunch" of shredded coconut in my curries, I prefer them smooth, so what I do is after toasting the coconut lightly I use a mortar and pestle to grind the coconut until it is as fine as possible (or use a food processor). I also find it acts as a better thickening agent.

This "Malaysian Beef Rendang" was very delicious. My husband and I both loved the flavor (5 stars), and it filled our home with a wonderful aroma reminiscent of the Thai restaurants in our neighborhood while it was cooking (10 stars!!!). My husband did not like the chewiness of the shredded coconut in the dish (2 stars), and asked me not to make it again unless I left out the shredded coconut. I actually liked it, and thought that it was the shredded coconut that made this dish unique relative to the many coconut-based dishes we have tried. I would not hesitate to make this recipe again. Thank you Trevor Hobson for sharing your recipe.

Very good!!!

this is the best recipe of my live i cook it every month very delicious it ate it with ketupat or nasi impit or u can eat it with rice lets try u all

Love making authentic curries, never tried Malaysian food before so couldn't tell you how authentic it was but it definitely tasted good! Used some suggestions in these reviews, I added turmeric as well as well as galangal and tamarind as I've seen those used in other recipes. Also added extra fresh green chillis as love spice. Couldn't find coconut flakes anywhere so I got ready to eat coconut pieces and blended them. My only tip would be to make sure all ingredients were very well blended so you have a smooth texture (keep blending even if you think it's already smooth!) and a pestle and mortar to grind the spices. Served with chopped cucumber and red onion, natural yogurt, chutney and popadoms.

My husband and I just love it. I left out the shredded coconut as I personally think this dish has a lot of Cholesterol but I love it. And I put brown sugar instead of white. The next time, I will make a bigger portion as I found the perfect recipe.

Our family did not care for this dish. It was very heavy on the cloves and we do not care for a lot of clove flavor. I am sure that this would be tasty dish to some. I have to say that the meat was tender and the balance of liquid to meat mixture was good to provide enough liquid for the meat not to burn. We used our cast iron wok and it worked perfectly!

A fantastic combination of spicy and sweet. The sauce served over rice is really nice. I also tried using a lemon grass paste (an Australian product sold under the brand name "Gourmet Garden") instead of the real grass and that seems to have worked nicely. Its quite a bit more expensive, but turning lemon grass into a paste using your chopper is a real challenge. I also substituted plain yogurt instead of coconut milk. A low fat solution, but costs a bit in terms of taste. Yogurt tempers the spicy peppers, so there's a balancing act to perform there as well.

i made the mistake of not dry-frying the fresh coconut until golden brown,instead i fried it until it turned a tiny bit yellow.This made the finished dish have a rather nasty crunch to it.Whether frying the fresh coconut until golden brown eliminates this problem remains to be seen.Next time i make this dish,i will just use alot of coconut CREAM (not milk) to compensate for the fresh coconut and will use slightly more lemongrass than is recomended in this recipe.Otherwise,this is a tasty dish for all the family.(minus the chilli`s of course).

I love this dish!! This was amazing and will be added to my list of dishes to be prepared in the future!! My first Malaysian dish and it was on point. Thanks a lot!! I enjoyed it!!

Made it for dinner today. One word sums it all: AWESOME! Tastes very similar to what I used to have at my favorite Penang cuisine restaurant in Singapore..:-) Used dried coconut flakes instead of fresh coconut – worked just fine. I recommend using less sugar though. This is one of my favorites already!

FREDFROG, rendang is not exclusively Indonesian. There is the Malaysian version and Indonesian version. This recipe is the Malaysian version which has the toasted coconut. Indonesia rendang does not have it. Normally the shredded coconut is dry toasted and then pound/ground till the oils appear and it becomes pasty, called kerisik.

AMAZING recipe. I made it the first time without chili and it made the whole dish lack colour. So the next time I halved the amount of chilis. I also blended the coconut after roasting because I didn't like the harder coconut shreds in the dish, it distracted from the beef texture. I used packaged frozen lemon grass instead of fresh because I find fresh hard to work with is usually more expensive and harder to find. My beef of choice was 'chuck steak', recommended by the butcher for stews. Finally, the MOST important thing about this dish is that you simmer it until the meat is tender! This actually took 5 hours on low simmer for me, not 1hr like the recipe suggests. The meat was still quite tough and chewy after the first hour for me. The final flavours were well worth it. I made this dish for my Singaporean friends and their families and it was definitely a big hit! The flavours are definitely better after the second or third day in the fridge. Serve over rice.

Truly blissful taste, came out delicious

this is my all time fav dish however it does contain higher calories and fat. for those who love healthy cooking, simply replace coconut milk with low fat milk, use canola oil, trimmed beef (this type cooks faster). what i usually do is i use rendang instant mix and boil it with beef and potato (untill potato tender) using 1 tbsp canola oil then add lemongrass (only). 5-10 mins before cooked add another 1 tbsp oil and mix ingredients. when the rendang is cooked then i pour bit of low fat milk and mix them over leave for 2 mins then ready to serve with rice! less fat and still as delicious as the original.

this is so good! followed instructions minus the coconut and added tablespoon of turmeric, coriander, fennel and cumin seeds. definitely we be a recipe I will do again and again. thx for sharing!

Overall is good but slightly too sweet for me so I'll use only 1 tbsp of sugar next time. I used 2 cups of coconut milk & skip the water. I also add 2 tsp of turmeric powder.

Error in recipe? Is the 2 cups of shredded coconut correct in this recipe? It's too much. Is it supposed to be ground/powder coconut? Shredded coconut ruined the dish. Used short ribs and had to simmer for 3 hours to develop flavour and tenderize the meat. Added turmeric and kaffir lime leaves. If it hadn't been for the coconut texture, the flavour after 3 hours was really good.

I liked the flavor profiles here, next time I plan to cut the chilis down by half at least as this meal came out very spicy.

Tasted very comparable to the Rendang I had in Penang. I prepared and ate the next day with coconut sticky rice. The meat turned out not that tender perhaps I need to roast it a little less.