My last recipe was a roasted fresh ham with cracklings. In hindsight maybe a roasted pork recipe during an unprecedented heat wave might seem bizarre but in the summer, we aren’t inside much. There is so much to do outside, so it’s not that uncommon for us to slow roast something, giving us time to work on other things. Here, instead of a slow braise I used the pressure cooker to minimize my time in the kitchen and it turned out fabulous! Ever since reading about Marc’s of No Recipes beef rendang I have been wanting to use his technique. It looks so incredible, but the idea of braising something for 4 hours in the summer didn’t quite work, hence the pressure cooker. It came out perfectly, and because we hadn’t had beef in so long, it was absolutely delicious.
I used our bull stew meat in this dish, but you could use chuck, boneless short ribs, or shank here. Our bull meat is lean and most rendang recipes call for fatty cuts but it turned out wonderfully! I also didn’t have access to many Thai ingredients, and I am on a budget so I used extra ginger for the galangal and lemon juice for the lemon grass.
Brown the beef in batches so that you get a real sear going
My small food processor isn’t working properly so my paste wasn’t very paste-like (but it still tasted amazing and looked pretty good too!)
All the ingredients in the pressure cooker before I pressured it. Is that how you say it?
After it had been pressure cooked.
I placed it in a skillet, brought it to a boil lowered the temperature to low and simmered it for 30 minutes.
This is fifteen minutes in at a very, very low heat. It’s starting to thicken.
After thirty minutes. The liquid is all gone and the spicy paste clings to the tender meat.
Pressure Cooked Grassfed Beef Rendang
Inspired by No Recipes Beef Rendang
Ingredients:
- 2 pounds beef cut up into 1 inch cubes
- For the paste:
- half a red onion (you can also use 1/2 cup shallots)
- 6 cloves garlic
- 3 -1 inch pieces of ginger (this is a lot of ginger)
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
- 1 teaspoon coriander powder
- 2-3 tablespoons red chili flakes ( I used 2 tablespoons)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- zest of half a lemon
For the braise (in the pressure cooker)
- juice of one lemon
- 1 can coconut milk
- 1 cinnamon bark
- 6 cloves
- 4 cardamon pods
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
Special equipment:
12 inch skillet
pressure cooker
Preparation:
- In a large 12 inch skillet add olive oil and brown the meat in batches. You want to get a nice brown color.
- Set aside (I placed it in the pressure cooker)
- Process the paste ingredients in a food processor
- Add to skillet and simmer at a low heat for about 10-15 minutes(you might need to add some more olive oil), until the paste is thick but not burned
- Add cooked paste, coconut milk, and spices to the pressure cooker and cook under high pressure for 10-15 minutes. Check the times on your pressure cooker manual for cubed beef. Pressure cooking meat is a bit counter intuitive as it will become tough if you cook it too long. So be mindful of proper cooking times.
- After you have pressure cooked and released the pressure add to skillet, bring to a boil and simmer at a very low heat for about 30 minutes, until the paste clings to the beef and the liquid is fully evaporated.
- Serve with rice. Enjoy!
