Mummy's Yellow Beef

This is one of my mum's signature dishes. Everyone in the family loves it. Her version is more generous with the onions and garlic and it looks like I underestimated my ingredients again.

The garam kunyit spice paste is made with shallots, garlic, turmeric, chilies and salt. I have cooked chicken and fish garam kunyit and guess what? You can also cook eggplant this style. Yes, that's my next project.

Although tastewise this garam kunyit beef turned out well, I am still not satisfied because there was too little rempah in the beef. I admit the stinginess was pretty much due to laziness because I used the mortar and pestle to pound the ingredients.

More ingredients means more pounding. Laziness does not pay when it comes to rempah. Sure, I could use the blender but that would mean more washing, right? Yeah, I hate washing the blender. Haiz........

To speed up my job, I prepared all my ingredients a day ahead. The beef and spice paste sat in the fridge overnight and the next day, all I did was heat up the oil in the wok and fry away. I like prepping in advance to make my life in the kitchen  easier.

My mum loves to serve this beef garam kunyit with coleslaw and that's how I love to eat it too. Believe me, it goes really well with coleslaw, strange as it may sound.

Beef Garam Kunyit

Recipe source : Phong Hong
Note : Recipe has been adjusted to up the shallots and chilies

Ingredients :

- 500g sliced beef (I used chuck tender)

- 20 shallots

- 4 red chilies

- 5 cloves garlic

- thumb sized fresh turmeric

- 1 tsp turmeric powder

- 1/2 tsp salt or more to taste

Method :

1. Pound or blend the shallots, chilies, garlic and fresh turmeric (need not be too fine).

2. Add turmeric powder and salt to the spice paste.

3. In a mixing bowl, mix the beef slices with the spice paste and you may cook immediately or leave to marinate overnight in the fridge.

4. To cook, heat oil in wok and fry the beef until the meat changes color.

5. Add some water and simmer until beef is tender.

6. When the beef is tender, continue to cook until dry.