Visiting an Indonesian restaurant in San Francisco.
Before I begin, let me tell you a story.
A few months before we moved to Indonesia we were visiting friends near the San Francisco Bay area. At that time we had been raising funds for our work in Indonesia for months and I was feeling tired. I wasn’t particularly excited about moving across the world and wasn’t sure what to expect once we arrived. We attended church with our friends and met an Indonesian family there. I asked the wife if there were any Indonesian restaurants in the Bay area. To my surprise, she rattled off an address to one of her favorites. That evening we made the drive into the city and my world was changed. We had no idea what to order so we just picked a few things. The food was amazing! It was deliciously complex and spicy. With the knowledge that the food was good, I was ready to begin this new chapter of our lives.
The delicious food that started my love for Indonesian cooking.
Fast forward to our time here.
We are blessed with having a helper come in and cook lunch for us during the work week. She cooks only Indonesian food for us and is a wonderful cook. When we eat at restaurants we often compare the food to hers, and hers is always better.
There are a few dishes that Matt and I would like to master because we would like to share them with our friends and family when we visit the States. My goal is to try to make one of these dishes each Sunday.
The first one is Beef Rendang. It’s a slow cooked beef in a spicy coconut milk. Our first attempt was pretty close but we lacked one ingredient. The next week we had all the right ingredients but I did something wrong and it tasted bland. Each week I talk to our helper to get tips and tricks on how to make it better.
My first attempt at beef rendang. Slow cooking the coconut milk, spices and beef together until almost dry.
One of the ingredients for Beef Rendang and many other Indonesian dishes is daun jeruk (kaffir lime leaves). We didn’t have any one week but luckily our neighbor has a kaffir lime tree. I knocked on her door and asked if I could pick a few off her tree. The situation made me laugh to myself because it’s the Indonesian equivalent of borrowing a cup of sugar from a neighbor.
We recently watched an episode of Gordon Ramsey’s Uncharted. In Season 2, episode 4 he goes to West Sumatra and makes Beef Rendang. Matt and I thoroughly enjoyed the episode.
I’m going to take a break from making Beef Rendang this week and am going to try my hand at Nastar (pineapple cookies).
The finished product!