142 Belantjang with beef (Timor)

The title of Beb Vuyk’s recipe says it is a dish from the Indonesian island of Timor. I am very curious. So far Beb Vuyk’s meat recipes didn’t disappoint me. This dish is beef with soy sauce that makes it beautifully dark in color and sweet in taste. I’m looking forward to it! So let’s get started.

This dish is enough for 3 people and completed in 2.5 hours. The beef needs time to get tender.

Belantjang of Beef (Timor) translated from Beb Vuyk Groot Indonesisch kookboek, page 147

Ingredients

1/2 kg of beef (semi fat)
2 tablespoons of oil
1/4 liter water

Herbs

3 tablespoons of chopped onions
1 clove chopped garlic
1 teaspoon of sambal terasi
1 teaspoon of Javanese sugar
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
salt
pepper

Cut the flesh into dices, sprinkle with salt and pepper and Javanese sugar and let marinate for an hour. Fry it in the oil and add if the meat turns brown the onions, garlic and sambal to it. Add the water and soy sauce and let it simmer until tender.

The ingredients are not complicated for this belantjang. I always buy a somewhat higher quality meat than regular beef at the supermarket. That is important because it needs to simmer for a while.

I add the pepper, salt and sugar to the meat and rub it in.  If you have no Javanese sugar use ordinary white sugar. Beb leaves the beef to marinate for an hour. I marinatie a little shorter. I’ve never been able to taste the difference when I marinate it longer. With a liquid marinade it’s different. The liquid and herbs go deep in to the meat.

I’m out of sambal trassi or chili pepper salsa so I make it myself. It’s is easy. I cut chili peppers in 1 cm pieces and rub it in the mortar with trassi. That is shrimp paste I buy at my Asian store. This sambal needs some salt too, but I leave that out. There is enough salt in this recipe.

Meanwhile, I sauté the beef. It needs to simmer for quite some time (about 2,5 hours) so a cast iron pan is perfect for this.

The rest can go in now; onions, garlic and homemade sambal shrimp paste.

Now the littlebit of water goes in. Beef needs a few hours in the pan; some water is important. I keep the lid half on the pan then it does not dry out too quickly. If that is the case, then add another cup of water.

It says in the recipe ‘one  tablespoon of soy sauce’. Maybe I add a bit more: 1.5 tbsp. Enak! I use ABC soy sauce from Heinz. That’s super sweet.

The whole dish turns so beautifully brown because of the soy sauce. I love the red sparks of sambal still on the meat. We eat this with a fresh cucumber salad and white rice!