Recipe: Eggplant Rendang
Maureen Tan has written a wonderful book for fans of rendang. In the aptly titled book Rendang, you’ll find not only traditional, regional stews as they are prepared on Sumatra. Maureen also shares her own recipes featuring ingredients she likes to use. Naturally, the famous beef rendang is not missing. We previously shared mussel rendang and vegetarian jackfruit rendang, but we don’t want to keep this eggplant rendang from you either.
Stuffed eggplants
Sarak terong, which means something like ‘stuffed eggplants’, is delicious on its own or as a side dish. This North Sumatran dish is also called rendang terong because its sauce is quite similar to rendang in terms of its ingredients.
How to make eggplant rendang
- Toast the grated coconut in a dry frying pan over medium heat until dark brown. Grind the toasted coconut finely in a mortar, until it becomes a slightly glossy paste from the oil released during grinding. Transfer the coconut paste to a bowl and set aside.
- In the same dry frying pan, toast the candlenuts, andaliman pepper, coriander seeds and cumin seeds over medium heat for about 2 minutes. Grind the toasted spices finely in the mortar. Add the ground spices to the coconut paste. Then grind the dried shrimp in the mortar into a fine paste and add it to the coconut paste and ground spices. Omit the dried shrimp for a vegan version, if desired.
- Finally, add the shallots, garlic, lomboks, rawits, ginger root, turmeric root and galangal, along with the salt, to the mortar and grind into a fine bumbu.
- Heat 3 tablespoons of coconut oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Fry the bumbu for about 4 minutes. Stir in the coconut paste with the ground spices and dried shrimp, the palm sugar, salam leaves and lime leaves, and fry for 1 minute. Add the coconut milk and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat and simmer gently for 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 160 °C. Halve the eggplants lengthwise and score the flesh crosswise. Heat the remaining 3 tablespoons of coconut oil in a frying pan over high heat. Fry the eggplant halves for about 2 minutes per side until golden brown. Arrange the fried eggplant halves in an oven dish, spoon the sauce over them and bake the eggplants in the center of the oven for about 30 minutes, until tender.
- Remove from the oven and sprinkle with lemon basil. Serve warm.
Title: Rendang
Author: Maureen Tan
Price: €32,99
Publisher: Carrera
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