British friend who now lives in Australia: "I'd walk home for that!"
It may look a bit boring on its own, but when you think that it starts as a shed-load of beige-looking coconut milk and cooks down to tius beautiful, shiny mahogany-coloured thing of beauty!
This is adapted from Charmaine Solomon's Complete Asian Cookbook
In fact it's a combination of two recipes and the final twist is venison.
Try to get hold of this wonderful book if you can, but if not, the two recipes are "Rendang" and "Rendang Daging". I won't reproduce them here as I've blended and changed them anyway, but Rendang is more or less like this: You coat the meat, brown it and then make the curry. Rendang daging is a recipe where you fry the belnded mixture, add coconut milk and everything except the tamarind and add the meat raw.
So, I've used the method from Rendang and a blend of ingredients that looks more like Rendang Daging.
I bought some venison and had to change the recipe again.
Directions (Beef or Lamb)
Put the chopped onion, garlic and ginger in a blender with enough thin cocnut milk to make the blender work
Mix the ground spices together and add to the meat with the blended mixture and leave it aside
Heat 1 tblsp oil in a large saucepan and fry the fennel and cumin for 30 seconds then fry the sliced onion until it starts to brown
Add the spiced meat and fry it until it changes colour
Add the remaining spices and the thin coconut milk and salt and simmer for as many hours as it takes to go nearly dry
Add the last tin of coconut milk and reduce again until it's nearly dry.
