Flippant Friday…..

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I’m sure the fact that it’s half term has nothing to do with the sudden surge in sale of these this week…..? Lots of people seem to be paying extra to have them sent by first class post too for some reason? Happy half term everyone! Hope you’ve had a good week.

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Slow Cooked Rendang Curry (with Coconut Oil!)

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Have you ever cooked using Coconut Oil? Well, I hadn’t but when I saw this fab challenge from HIBS100 to come up with a recipe using Vita Coco Coconut Oil, I decided to give it a go! Therefore, this recipe is an entry into the #Swearbyit challenge with Vita Coco. Find more great coconut oil recipes and tips on using coconut oil at www.swearbyit.com

My coconut oil arrived through the post and is organic, cold-pressed and, as they say at Vita Coco, ready to impress!

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This one little pot of delicious smelling divineness (ok, made up word!) can  be used for cooking, baking, nourishing hair and lots more. Once I started talking about it to people I found out I was behind the times as they’re already converted! Pah! So, here’s my catch-up lesson.

As we’re off sweet stuff (in theory) at the moment I decided to go for a savoury dish, and as I was so in the dark about coconut oil, I decided a visit to our local butcher was in order. He’s a really helpful guy who comes up with some brilliant ideas himself and who is currently working on a range of “takeaway” meals so people can eat fresh but quickly if they’re in a hurry. He’d not tried coconut oil yet either (maybe another convert?!) but between us we decided that curry seemed like a natural choice to cook up something extra tasty. To my eternal shame, when he mentioned Rendang I’d never heard of it – to the extent I had to get him to spell it out so I could write it down so I could start searching for the curry paste! I left with some beef and that hunting gleam in my eye!

Before trotting up there, I phoned the local supermarket to see if they had any Rendang  Curry Sauce – I was very pleased they’d never heard of it either and I ended up spelling it for them too! I was even more pleased that they had it in stock – aisle 5, right hand side, cashier end if you’re ever in my local supermarket…..

So, that was 2 ingredients sorted.  I decided, as Kev’s working away at the moment, with a drive home of anything from 1 1/2 hours (more depending on road and weather conditions) a slow cooker recipe seemed to be a good idea.

I gathered together some other ingredients which I thought would go well and this turned out to be my final list –

RECIPE

1tbsp Coconut Oil
Bunch of spring onions (You could use ordinary onion but I was going for “the look”!)
1.5lb diced braising steak
2tbsp Rendang Curry Paste
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Tin of coconut milk
Red pepper
Salt and pepper to taste

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METHOD

Melt 1tbsp coconut oil in a frying pan and add spring onions, cut whichever way you prefer – I went length-ways….not sure why!

Spoon onions into slow cooker and turn up heat before adding seasoned beef to the frying pan.

Flash fry beef, adding 2tbsp Rendang Curry Paste as you stir. Once the meat is browned, pop the whole lot into the slow cooker.

Lower the heat on frying pan and add the tin of tomatoes in order to de-glaze the pan and to get all the delicious flavours from the pan to the slow cooker.

Tip tomatoes into slow cooker.

Pour coconut milk into slow cooker.

You could at this point add the sliced red pepper but I decided to leave mine until an hour before the end of cooking time so that they’d have a bit more texture to them.

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Pop the lid on the slow cooker and set it according to your instruction manual. As we were eating at an undetermined time, I put mine on low heat and left it on for approximately 7 hours.

As Rendang is Asian inspired (yup, afraid I was educated by the lid of the jar to start with!) I decided to serve the curry with plain long grain rice to which I added a few squishes of lime juice together with a light grating of the rind of the lime, just for another dash of colour!

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Given that I’d tackled so many firsts in one go, I was SO pleased with the resulting meal. It was an absolute triumph, if I say so myself!

We’ve got lots more coconut oil left (tho some is going to go on my bumpy bits on my arms….ta to my sister for that advice!!) and some of the curry paste too so we’ll definitely be having this again. Yay! Thank you so much to HIBS100 and Vita Coco for the inspiration and for giving me a kick into trying something new – I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it! And thank you very much to my local butcher at Porkies (!). If ever you get stuck for ideas, a trip to your local independent butcher may well be your best first step too….