Dendeng pedas ('hot' fried beef)

6 servings

Ingredients

Quantity Ingredient
1 kilograms (2 lb) topside (beef)
1 tablespoon Olive oil
½ teaspoon Black pepper
1 tablespoon Dark soya sauce
10 Shallots
4 Red chillis (or 2 tbs Sambal Ulek)
2 tablespoons Vegetable oil
Salt
1 tablespoon Lemon or fresh lime juice

Directions

MARINADE

BUMBU

* Cut the beef fairly thin and trim it into small, square pieces.

Marinate it for 1 hour or longer. Remember that pedas=hot++spicy hot! This is fried beef, with a robust flavour of chilli. Slice the shallots finely. Seed and slice the chillis. Fry them in a tablespoonful of oil, in a wok, stirring all the time until they are golden brown. Add salt to taste. Keep hot. Put a tablespoonful of oil in a thick frying-pan, and fry the slices of meat a few at a time.

Three minutes on each side will be ample*. When all the pieces are cooked, put them into the wok with the shallots and chilli. Heat, and mix well. Sprinkle over the mixture 1 tablespoonful of lemon juice, or, better still, fresh lime juice. Stir, and add more salt if necessary. Serve hot, with rice. * NOTE: In Indonesia, the meat is usually fried until crisp. You can even buy sun-dried dendeng which only needs coating with bumbu and frying. Crisp dendeng can be rather tough, and I prefer it as described above; however, a purist might say that my recipe is not 'genuinely' Indonesian. Makes 6 servings.

From "Indonesian Food and Cookery", Sri Owen, Prospect Books, London, 1986." ISBN 0-907325-29-7. Posted by Stephen Ceideberg; March 1 1993.

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