Name: Betawi spiced beef
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Indonesian
Ingredients: 3 cm (1¼ inches) ginger, peeled; 6 cm (2½ inches) galangal, skin scrubbed; 3 lemongrass sticks; 1 star anise; ½ cinnamon/cassia stick; 4 cardamom, lightly cracked; 3 cloves; 6 lime leaves; 1 red onion, roughly chopped; 1 tablespoon oil; 600 g (1 lb 5 oz) beef shin or stewing steak; 5 large garlic cloves, roughly chopped; 1 tablespoon dark palm sugar (gula jawa); 3 candlenuts or 6 blanched almonds, toasted; 2 tablespoons kecap manis; 1 teaspoon salt; 1½ teaspoons ground coriander; ¼ nutmeg, grated; ½ teaspoon ground black pepper; ½ teaspoon ground cumin; 5 salam leaves (optional)

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Fire Islands

By Eleanor Ford

Published 2019

About

A richly spiced dish from the Betawi people of Java. It has a little sweetness as well as tang with complex layers of flavour. Don’t be put off by the lengthy ingredient list - the method is simple with long, slow cooking doing all the work, with exquisite results.

Ingredients

600 g (1 lb 5 oz) beef shin or stewing steak
1<

Method

Trim the beef of any outer sinew, but leave the inner fat and connective tissue, which will keep the braise tender. Cut the beef into a 3-4 cm (1¼—1½ inch) dice.

Make the bumbu spice paste. Use a food processor or high-speed blender to grind all the ingredients to a paste, adding a little water to help the blades bring everything together.

Heat the oil in a casserole pan and add