Eid and Rendang

I know, I'm meant to be in HSC hiatus mode, but too many ideas popping in my head to report for future generations (i.e. blog about). So I thought I'd blog about Eid. I know, a bit late, but wtf who cares! Eid (or eid-ul-fitr if you wanna get fancy) is like Christmas for Muslims. Well not really, but it's our biggest religious celebration that marks the end of Ramadan and means we can eat all we want again!

Remember my Ramadan weightloss plan? Well let's just say starvation type diets (a.k.a fasting) just don't work for me, and I'm now fatter then when I started. Woohoo. Yay. Cheer.

I went to the mosque (Lakemba Mosque) in the morning wearing nice formal clothes, all handily scabbed off my brother. Sometimes it pays off being the fifth child (out of 6, mind you). It wasn't the most exciting Eid, I was too tired because everyone stayed up helping with the food.

I cooked chicken rendang!

First time ever too! Rendang is a very Malay dish; its like a coconut-ish curry. It's so rich and thick its like a liquid stroke; one taste and your arteries are GONE. But, oh, what a death. Let's see if I can remember the recipe off the top of my head...

Chicken Rendang!

INGREDIENTS:

Vegetable oil
Some chicken (one, two?)

Onions, garlic, ginger (the TRINITY of Asian cooking)
Lemon grass
Galangal
Tamarind paste
Chilli paste
Tumeric powder
Cumin, fennel and coriander seed powder

Dessicated cocunut
Coconut milk
Kafir-lime leaves

Salt, chicken stock, MSG, all that extra jazz.

MY SPECIAL METHOD:

Firstly, cut up the chicken into curry-style pieces (if you want you can coat the pieces in tumeric powder and salt and let them marinate for a while. I don't. LOL). Next we need to make the rendang paste, which contains the tasty flavours. In a blender (food processor, liquidator, whatever) put a few...

Ok. At this moment I am trying to type up this recipe but people are SERIOUSLY annoying me on MSN. Jeez! I like you people but I don't want to talk to you ALL THE FREAKIN TIME! And no that does not make me emo. It makes me a self-centred bastard. *Shrug*.

...peeled onions, some garlic and some ginger (I tend to use the canned versions; 'tis heaps more convenient). Chuck in a sliced stalk of lemongrass (peel off the outer layer first princess), some galangal (weirdest thing ever), a spoon of tamarind paste, chilli paste (according to how spicy you want it to be), a heaped teaspoon of the tumeric powder as well as a level teaspoon of the ground spices.

Turn the blender on and voila! Tasty paste. Add only a little bit of water if necessary to keep the blades moving. This is still a raw paste, no tasting allowed silly fools.

Now that we have the paste, we need kerisik. This is an essential ingredient of rendang. Using a dry-blender, blend a cup of dessicated coconut until it disintegrates into a oily paste (LOL! Isn't that cool? Dessicated coconut, the bloody driest thing on Earth, turns into an oily paste if you blender it). Then take this paste, and using a little oil, fry it in a frying pan until it turns brown (not TOO brown; like the colour of dry leaves). Woohoo! We have kerisik!

Using a big pot, add oil, and fry the rendang paste. Fry, fry, fry until you can't be bothered, and then add the kerisik. Stir till you get cramps and then chuck in coconut milk (like a can? Or more?) and the kafir-lime leaves. Add salt, chicken stock, voodoo spices and taste. Yum? WIN! Not yum? F*** OFF! Or add more salt.

Add the chicken, and let it cook until tender. And there you have it.

Chicken rendang!